SC2Mapster

Update report

This is going to be quite a difference from last mission, however I think it might be a good way to tell a piece of the story that Warmaster Jensen (boss from Mission 1) will have to explain.

And... I happened to have developed a soft spot for finally trying my hand on a "true" 3rd person shooter experience in the game.

Below is a first teaser-like supercut.

(Video is a cut and paste bandicam recording.)

Update Report
Below is the list of changes/updates/fixings that come with the new release.
- A Popup-style info-panel is now displayed in the top-right corner of the screen. It will be automatically called based on the selection of production/research structures to have better control and insight of their queue's. Incidentally this has also effected in the allowable queue-size to be increased to 6 (from the default 5).

- Gas is now the primary source to "pay" when attacking. Mostly all basic units weapons are now changed to where Gas is their primary weapon cost. This affects all machinegun type weapons (Infantry and Tanks). Rocket based weapon are currently unchanged as these already had a gas-favoured weapon cost.

- Added 2 additional but small resource fields in the large settlement that you take command of in section 2 of the mission. An 8-unit Fluidite field and a 12-unit Gas field.

- Swapped the large Gas resource field and a Crystal resource field in section 2 of the mission. Together with above addition of the small fields, all resources will be safely accessible from the beginning of that section.

- Stealth Drones now have a "Hold Fire" command to help in controlling their stealthiness.

- Increased speed and turning 'traverse' for all vehicles (this includes enemy vehicles).

- Added the "Signal Boost" upgrade (at Drone Control Tower) that increases the max count of controllable Construction Drones to 20. This upgrade is accessible in section 2 of the mission.

- Tooltips have been updated for unit, structures and research to better indicate their requirements and effects (if needed).

- Icons now have unique hotkeys that should no longer interfere with other functions of the game, this includes most vehicle icons that have been updated with proper hotkeys.

- The "Cancel" buttons now have the GRAVE key for a hotkey. Regretfully I just no longer know how I screwed myself over when (foolishly) deciding to make the game Main Menu accessed through the ESC key. The GRAVE key (due to position on qwerty boards) was the best located for the purpose I wanted and also not refused by the game. Additionally, the Cancel Subpage icons have been changed to differentiate between the "I-cancel-this-action" and the "to-go-another-command-panel-page" commands.
So, to reiterate: ESC calls the Main Menu of the game, GRAVE is the cancel command for the command panel actions.

- Structures can now be repaired.

- Scavengers no longer build infantry and vehicles from the same structures. (however their buildtimes have been slightly adjusted to make sure the attack waves aren't screwed up.)

- Added several "Black Zone" Scavenger Radar Jamming Towers across the map.

- Fixed an issue that allowed to transferring units between both sections of the mission.

In reply to wojtej123:

 Thank you for letting me know of the bug. I'll adress it in the oncoming update.

 Just to clarify on my on behalf: You mean that when you leave a worker all the way in the south, you get/keep control over that worker at the moment you first get control over the stealth tanks?

Also, another question: What exactly do you mean by "Without triggering AI" ? Did you encounter a situation where the enemy did not send attacks?

Update Report
Hello everyone. Following several pieces of Feedback please find below the updates.

- A Popup-style info-panel is now displayed in the top-right corner of the screen. It will be automatically called based on the selection of production/research structures to have better control and insight of their queue's. Incidentally this has also effected in the allowable queue-size to be increased to 6 (from the default 5).

- Gas is now the primary source to "pay" when attacking. Mostly all basic units weapons are now changed to where Gas is their primary weapon cost. This affects all machinegun type weapons (Infantry and Tanks). Rocket based weapon are currently unchanged as these already had a gas-favoured weapon cost.

- Added 2 additional but small resource fields in the large settlement that you take command of in section 2 of the mission. An 8-unit Fluidite field and a 12-unit Gas field.

- Swapped the large Gas resource field and a Crystal resource field in section 2 of the mission. Together with above addition of the small fields, all resources will be safely accessible from the beginning of that section.

- Stealth Drones now have a "Hold Fire" command to help in controlling their stealthiness. 

- Tooltips have been updated for unit, structures and research to better indicate their requirements and effects (if needed).

- Icons now have unique hotkeys that should no longer interfere with other functions of the game, this includes most vehicle icons that have been updated with proper hotkeys.

- The "Cancel" buttons now have the GRAVE key for a hotkey. Regretfully I just no longer know how I screwed myself over when (foolishly) deciding to make the game Main Menu accessed through the ESC key. The GRAVE key (due to position on qwerty boards) was the best located for the purpose I wanted and also not refused by the game. Additionally, the Cancel Subpage icons have been changed to differentiate between the "I-cancel-this-action" and the "to-go-another-command-panel-page" commands.
So, to reiterate: ESC calls the Main Menu of the game, GRAVE is the cancel command for the command panel actions.

- Structures can now be repaired.

- Scavengers no longer build infantry and vehicles from the same structures. (however their buildtimes have been slightly adjusted to make sure the attack waves aren't screwed up.)

In reply to ragingballistaee:

 Hi there mate, Thanks for the feedback. Let me adress some of the topics you mentioned.

"So I beat the mission. I found it pretty hard due to the ammo system, the large enemy attack waves and the extremely slow build times. A few too many times, I was annihilated because I ran out of resources, killing any momentum and forcing me to just wait until more resources are harvested."
- Fair to mention it. I have now played the map several time once more to do some testing on a myriad of things and I may be able to alleviate some of the issue in this regard. Gas is easily harvested and isn't needed in particular great amounts for most things. I think I will change it so that weaponsfire will use gas as it "major" resource and make crystal/ore be the secondary. This way the crystal and ore resources can be used more dedicatingly.

"I noticed that the enemy could build both vehicles and infantry from their Habitats and Vehicle Bays, slightly diminishing the point of sniping specific structures."
- I guess this is a side effect from the fact I use one ability for building everything on their end. I'll look into solving the issue by deviding the ability.

"One thing I really appreciate here is the lack of miss chances."
- I will be honest, that has crossed my mind, but I didn't want to add in too much randomization. From a developer pov it can be funny to make it, from player perspective not so much. As a WoT-player you'd think my brain would be more actively punishing me when such thoughts cross my mind XD. Long story short, that won't be a thing !

QoL suggestions (and responses):

Give the Stealth Drones the Hold Fire command. As a permanently cloaked unit, it is excellent for scouting, but gets vaporized as soon as it auto attacks any large group of units. It also makes sneaking them into positions inside enemy bases for surgical strikes a bit tedious.
- I had it in previously, but for some unexplained reason it didn't work last time so I took it out for the time being. In the meantime I've been fiddling with it again and its going to be added back in. 

"Allow the ability to right click the resource spawner with a worker to make it automatically harvest any newly spawned resource. The problem arose when I built a Habitat next to the resources after which they depleted extremely quickly and forced me to occasionally to check the spawners for new resources."
- The system regretfully doesn't work that way to make that (easily) implemented. The regrowing is based on triggers and the center of the field is basically just a gloryfied doodad. I've done some trials with a depleted resource node in the center but it doesn't really solve the problem. Once the final resource node is gone (they are removed same as normal resource fields) the problem would come back. Even IF you'd be able to use the center node as a dummy that then makes the workers divert to whatever node is available if there's none there the chain is simply broken. There might be a way to solve it (sort of) but that would require quite a lot of work, testing etcetc which I'm not (currently) willing to do.

"Distinguish between research requirement and building requirement. The Vehicle Bay for example mentions that it requires a Vehicle Bay. At that point I didn't knew that there was an upgrade to unlock the building and thought it required a preplaced one (didn't noticed the one I had at the start of the second segment for some time). Doesn't help the fact that it also requires a Command Center, the building and it just says Command Center."
- I'll see that I make the tooltips be more specific in this regard.

"Make units by default not attack walls."
- They already have the lowest priority setting, outside of that results from trying to make units ignore the building give off some inconsistent data. Using the main filters generates a hard lockout for attackers which is a very undesired effect. Besides that I tried using the "support Filters" (I think it was) but that hasn't worked so far. Unless there's a clear and simple method that achieves precisely what I'm looking for, its probably not going to change compared to what it is now.

"Make it so that when a wall is built it checks for adjacent walls and transform into a proper shape to remove the need to have a dedicated wall submenu and having to keep track of which wall segments are placed where."
- This I will not be implementing for 2 reasons: 1) I want for a player to have complete freedom in how and what walls they may built, and any such "snapping" would somehow require the game to provide a choice of what wall segment you as the player would want and I'm very sceptical if that is even possible. At the end of the day I'm not willing to find out if/how that would even work, so the current method is simply much easier and straight forward. 2) Seeing as how walls are optional for the gameplay and any segment performs the exact same function I don't see any reason to make a very (potentially impossible) snapping system just for visuals.
Even if you were to only ever build cross-pieces or horizontal segments, all would function identically in comparison to a nice looking 'correct' wall.

"Though more of a bug, queuing units while having Command Centers and Habitats selected will only make either one or the other start producing."
- They technically still are different structures. It works essentially no different compared to having barracks and factories selected at the same time. That being said, I can try if playing around with the alias's works. While they produce the same units, the requirements aren't exactly the same so I'm currently not sure if trying to commonize their command panel may upset other things.

Bugs (and adressed solution)

"Pressing escape to cancel queued units or upgrades brings the main menu instead."
- Yes, I modified this quite a long time ago when I was still under the C&C influence. However I can't for the life of me remember how on earth I changed it and now I'm unable to retify that issue.
So, as an alternative (not ideal but...) I'm looking into using another hotkey for the cancel buttons becasue at least I know where to do this. I'm looking into if there's any conflictions but the primary idea is using TAB. This also hits a somewhat larger issue in that hotkeys are a bit of a mess I have neglected because I kept forgetting it at the time.

"Research Facility's submenu's cancel research and back buttons are identical."
- I'll use an alternative button for the subpage cancellation icons '<<' styled.

The shielded marines have 0 current shields when built. Is this intended?"
- This is indeed intentional, but not for any specific reason other than giving it the idea the shield needed to actually be 'activated'. so its more so a lore-based thing.

"Walls cannot be repaired."
- This is now fixed.

Hello there everyone.

To those to whom it applies, thanks for trying out the first mission.

A minor update from my side. One thing that bugged me a little was that due to a minimized UI, you also lost the infopanel to view the qeue of any production structure. I think I've deviced a way around this issue where I make it like a pop-up menu after selecting the appropriate structure.

It'll be located top right corner and (so goes the theory) just show the qeue during the time given structure remains selected.

This should help in further managing whatever is produced or researched at a time.

Cheers

Update Report
 Hello everyone, I'm pleased to announce that the full first mission will see a release in the following week. I want to run a few test-plays to make sure everything works as I intended, but all the pieces of the puzzle are now pretty much finished.

Below is yet again a list of some key high-lights, starting with a rather important one:
- The Infantry-command cap is removed, only the one for the Construction Drones remains. This because the cap didn't seem to register the supposed unit-count properly. And honestly, while it seemed like a fun idea at the time its too much hassle for little return.
This one might be a bit controversial, but I have finally figured out what was causing the 'malfunction'. I re-introduced this mechanic to give it a proper testrun, however I made sure the cap is generous now with a cap of 50 infantry units (whatever mixture), which previously was intended to be 20. As was always the intend: there will be ways to increase the cap with several increments.

- Added/improved on the 'mission documents' (the tips section). Now also features "unit specs" which will also be featured in the unit description icon.

- Supply Centers no longer require a power plant. This will allow players to more easily and faster get some unit training underway. However do keep in mind their power requirement.

- For plot reasons, made sure a dynamic check is performed when a 'key location' is being entered so that certain dialogue will always trigger.

- Changed the position of a key target structure to be more readily noticed and discovered.

Asside from these changes, the secondary section of the mission that will also be playable now will ofcourse feature a fairly hefty increase in accessible technology to explore and larger battles to fight.

The mission map will be an 'uncut' style (I guess you could say) Even stuff that isn't yet supposed to be encountered or simply custom models that were already created will ship with this map, so should you have been on the lookout for the Revenant models (as example) then you'll have a good portion of these also.

In reply to vastanx:

 Cool! I've just uploaded the beta version of the first mission. I hope you enjoy it!

Update Report
 Slow and somewhat steady I think is the apt description for this project. Since the first demo went online most of the time spend for this miniseries has been going towards behind the screens stuff.... for the little time that was available to spend on it.
However with a large enough portion done (and me getting bored and sick with it) I redirected my efforts to get the actual mission underway again.
The Demo featured what was basically the first section of the mission. In the second part you'll be given control of -in my view- one of the funnest vehicles I've ever made and a large(r) base to go into some more base-building and management, making a bigger army, using more technological diversity... just more.

Currently the transition into the second part of the mission is working and I'm currently working to develop the remainder of the mission from there.
Next to this, the first part of the mission was updated with the feedback provided in this comment section. aswell as some additional changes that in the end I didn't like or didn't work as I had hoped them to.
- The unit-command cap is removed, only the one for the Construction Drones remains. This because the cap didn't seem to register the supposed unit-count properly. And honestly, while it seemed like a fun idea at the time its too much hassle for little return.
- Increased enemy unit wave strength.
- Changed several unit models to try and make them a bit more differt from one another. However, I'm hesitant to go into wildly different changes. Also gave the Commando a different color to make him far easier to recognize amongst normal soldiers.
- Added/improved on the 'mission documents' (the tips section).
- Balanced the Rocket Soldier a bit more compared to the other units (mind you, he's still strong).
- Increased the health of the Scavenger troopers slightly.
- Added more story-beats in the first part of the mission (second part naturally will further expand on that also)

To tickle some fancy I uploaded some images in the 'images' section.

In reply to canetoado:

Thanks for the feedback mate! 

"The main thing to talk about here is the resource system which is unique. The power system I found to be very easy to navigate because this mission doesn't incentivise you to build a lot of buildings. C&C didn't support pop caps but power acted as a soft building cap. Here we have limitations on both units and buildings."

- The limitations will of course be expanded so you can build more. If the system with soft cap on units will prove to be too clunky I might scrap it or increase the tolerable limits greatly. Its a bit experimental so far. As far as the building of stuff is concerned you are not wrong there. It will ofcourse become more prevalent later on when more building will become available and I'm still looking into how to go about power-requirements for base defenses.

"I'm assuming you'll end up balancing the availability and cost when it comes to the various resource types. I noticed that Fluidite is very limited in this mission. Furthermore when I got access to Cadmium, finally, the mission ended as I'd already destroyed the enemy base. This limited what we could test in the demo unfortunately!"

- That is the idea, yes. I'm working (albeit slowly) on a second demo that expands the map to a point where vehicle and fortification construction becomes more prevalent. There you will have a resource field of every type available and then the map needs to be scoured for more.

Balance wise it'll probably always be a bit.. campainy :P

"Lastly, as with most games, I'm assuming the rock-paper-scissors system comes down to AP vs HE weapons. In the map editor, I noticed the existence of machine gun tanks and marauder tanks, I assume they take on different roles. However it's a little hard to differentiate them in game. You probably already knew this and were planning to add more differentiated m3 files anyway."

- It's rather akin to how it works for C&C games also yes. AP (Cannon types) dont usually do well to Infantry and vice versa machinegun type weapon dont do well versus armor.
The AP vs HE system will ultimately mix that up a bit. Ultimately there will also be very long range weapon (and I mean LONG range) in the form of Howitzers and MRLS.  With regards to the last sentence, actually no I didn't... as the creator I guess I am biased so thanks for giving this feedback, I will try to make them more destinguished. This is probably also a bit inherent due to the nature of there being a strong Warzone 2100 influence. I'll see what I can do with this.

"Overall this is a solid, incredible effort -- look forward to seeing more of it! Your models etc are amazing."

- Thank you very much!

"EDIT: there is a spot near your initial command centre where produced units get stuck, if you set a rally point to the north-west. You should probably paint the north-west cells with unpathable terrain to avoid this bug, as a harvester getting stuck is fairly painful (I escaped by forcing my harvester to build a building there, and it got out)."
- If you manage to, could you provide me with a snapshot of the specific area? I've not noticed this myself sofar. At any rate, thanks for letting me know.

And as closing comments in general: Thanks for playing and the feedback and yes, the plan is to continue this miniseries (to keep myself from overextending) and I hope that the second demo with extended map will showcase some more of this series' mechanics.

In reply to canetoado:

 Alright thanks. 

In reply to CerberusSC2:

 Hey there mate. Might I inquire what your intial thoughts are?