Among the Stars (another sci-fi map)

[BlargIAmDead]

"Among the Stars" is a science-fiction map built around the actual star systems that are closest to Earth. You take the role of either humans or aliens: before the timer runs out, you have to destroy all your enemy's ships, and take over all of their planets.

This is the beta version. There are known problems with the model for gas planets (namely, that it doesn't rotate like the barren and fertile planets), and with the loading screen (namely, that there isn't one). If you'd like to help with either of these problems, go here: www.thehelper.net/forums/showthread.php?t=89953

...or here: www.thehelper.net/forums/showthread.php?t=90772

What I'm really interested in now are balance issues. Feel free to post your win-loss records here: which race did you play, and did you win or lose? If you have any other ideas -- maybe the Metabolic Boost upgrade makes the alien attack too powerful, or the timer runs out before you can find all the human ships -- go ahead and add them!

My thanks, and good luck! :thup:

 

[BlargIAmDead]

Le sigh...le bump.

 

[BlargIAmDead]

And...Cinco de Mayo bump.

C'mon, ladies and gents, I'm starved for attention.

 

[Psiblade94122]

i am too... 6 posts no responses on mine lol

im just responding to break up the posts, to be frank im not that big a fan of conquest maps

 

[Furberg]

i really think that this is boring, no offense ^^

 

[MurderMode]

I think you'll need to work on this alot more before you can get any feedback. There isn't too much to it at all at this stage...

I couldn't be bothered waiting the hour and a half required before the fleet came because I had nothing to do in the mean time. There really wasn't much of a solar system to conquer.... and it was too simple to keep interesting.

Basically at the moment all you are doing is waiting 1h 30min for all your resources to come in to build a limited variety of ships... and it takes forever.

And the terraining needs more work. Its a big map full of nothing but black tile... I'm not sure what you could do to spice it up but anything is in order.

I think you should really decrease the time it takes to do anything in the game, increase the size of the solar systems and add more of them in and make conquering planets and gathering resources somewhat more interesting and important to gameplay. Also a larger unit variety and some midgame events would be nice.

 

[BlargIAmDead]

First, my apologies to everybody. In my haste to get something out, I forgot to set both the humans and aliens to "User": no wonder everybody's so bored. I can haz shameburger. :banghead: But that glaring error was corrected, and I'm now looking for a better tileset in The Hive, so at least you have some star-dots to look at or something. (Though added ships and other features will have to wait, until I have more feedback on how the current ships fail.)

Psiblade: That's the "Orbiting Battle" map, right? I wonder if your problem there is that everybody's waiting for v.3 to come out, and so they're not bothering with v.2. (That's what I've been doing, anyway.)

Furberg: Okay, that's cool. Now that two players can play what's supposed to be a two-player map...would you like to try again? If you do, and you're still bored, tell me exactly what you thought was boring; if not, tell me what you thought was exciting.

MurderMode: From what you're saying, it seems like I wasn't clear about the game objectives, so I want to ask a few questions:

- Did you understand that the goal is to conquer all the star systems, before the fleet shows up?
- Did you understand that you can capture other planets outside your solar system, and that captured planets increase the amount of resources you get per second?

 

[MurderMode]

yeah I understood the games objectives.... but it was lacking any depth. There wasn't any real way to find the solar systems other then to fly around looking for them... which took forever and of course once I got there I found them just to be replications of the original solar system. Which you obviously know... but it's just the tedious nature of searching for these places just to cast an ability on a unit (planet) that is really makes this map uninteresting. Not to mention how long it takes to make a planet fertile. The first time I tried to terraform a barren planet into a fertile one I was amazed at how much the progress bar didn't want to move. I mean it took like 3 minutes before I even noticed a slither on the bar, which prior to that I thought i was missing something to allow it to be terraformed.

I get what you are trying to do, and this map could be fun... but right now I don't think it will appeal to anybody. A game that can be played for a long period of time can be classed as fun, but a game that takes a long period of time isn't necessarily so. Just because you have a whole hour and a half to build your empire doesn't mean jack when anything you do takes forever, mainly because there isn't anything fun to do in between the waiting time.

Seriously, when I played the game I thought I was doing something wrong because I couldn't find anything to do while I terraformed a planet and waited for my transport to find something. Afterwards I looked at your triggers to see I wasn't doing anything wrong, there just wasn't much there at all.

These are my suggestions to improve the game to a playable level -

1. Time - allow the time for the varinids to arrive to be set by the host, between 30min - 1 1/2 hours. This will allow for people to have short games or larger and more competitive ones depending on the time they have to play.

2. Put solar systems everywhere - More solar systems means people will have to travel less time before they actually get to do something. Instead of having to fly all the way to a solar system ages away just to find it is already inhabited by a player, make players conquer outwards from their starting point, until the outer regions of their domination come in contact with another player. Then they can fight back and forth to increase their area.

3. Quarter the duration time for EVERYTHING - ....lol. Sure in reality terraforming a planet would take a lifetime... but gamers don't have a lifetime to spend on the game (well some do. but not most). It would just be more fun if players did things a little quicker, and the real focus was on who is attacking what solar system where.

4. What the hell are gas planets? - seriously, wtf do they do? As far as I can tell... nothing. Maybe make some sort of resource ship that can collect gas from the planets via casting an ability on it. The gas can just be converted to either metal or carbon resources, and the ability can have a large cooldown (something which i think you would approve of, lol) so people have to micro manage them to gain its full potential. You could use some sort of mana draining spell, and once the planets mana = 0 then it is depleted of gas and they must find a new planet.

5. Make colonising planets FUN. - Same goes for terraforming. As far as colonising goes, all you need is a leaderboard with some kind of integer that shows your current over all population. You can add to this, giving the game more stats n whatever. I've played commercial planetary conquer games before, and they are all about the STATS. They don't even have to mean anything, just allow a player to say shit like ' my society has more bitches then yours dude, you some kinda fag?'. That's fucking fun.

With terraforming... I'm not sure what you can do. Maybe make the barren planets start with low hp, make reverse life drain spell for the resource ship that actually gives life to the planet and at the same time while being cast reduces resources. When it's hp is full it becomes terraformed. This way the player can micro manage the ships and get a whole fleet to cast on a planet at once, terraforming the planet sooner. At the same time a player might not be getting disturbed by his enemy so he might send out every ship of his fleet to take over a separate planet while he does other things. It's things like this that add more of a strategy element to a game.

6. MORE PLAYERS - 2 player maps never work, especially if you want it played on B.net. Increase the player cap and already you are closer to success.

WELL. I hope this helps you out and you can draw some ideas from my dribble... you got to admit there isn't much to your game at this point and although the idea is nice, it needs to be reworked before you are going to get anyone to play it.

 

[R@i_no_Wyrm]

Yea, quite agree with Murder Mode.

Add some more sky objects for real. Like asteroids that may destroy your sucking carrier when moving around...
Don't forget blackholes, they're the best thing.

Make stars do grow and may explode. Make rotation system.

Eeeeh... what is those white lines after I travel upon it? fix that. It sucks my eyes.

It's too empty. And slow. Make some ships with energy blasts to move faster for some time.

Ideas for planet forming : make they can carry items. One item for one building. For example you may want a planet w/o pollution to get as much mineral as you want, but it's primitive. Modern planets can create units and do researches.

 

[Furberg]

Furberg: Okay, that's cool. Now that two players can play what's supposed to be a two-player map...would you like to try again? If you do, and you're still bored, tell me exactly what you thought was boring; if not, tell me what you thought was exciting.

nice man! that makes it a bit more interresting, someone to chat with, i havent tried the new version yet, but the thing that was boring is the slow game speed. i often play strategic games also. but you should make it a bit more interresting, more events perhaps. and more/faster upgrades. i couldnt stop using warpten (build faster units code) ^^

 

[takethat]

the transformation takes 2minutes even i use warp ten...
location of planet in the system looks kind of wierd, like wat we saw in the schools book.
projectile of battlecruiser are wierd, in space where no btm and top, yet its projectile is like of catapult...
and the attack of battlecruiser leaves crater in space(is this the fragile of time and space?)
transport ship should be divided into colonize ship and transport ship
colonize ship landed on the planet and its hull is the early establishment of colony.
transport ship use to transport army to enemy planet and try to take over it.

no matter wat space game u making, 3 type of bomb looking ships are not going to make it statisfactory.

other then barren and fertile planet, i think people may want to build small outpost of colony on some floating rock like asteroid.


sry i din wait til the fleet appear, coz all i c is a large ship, is there only 1 ship or when times up, many ship will come out, 1 ship's fleet is kind of funny.

for the moment now, the map is less attractive compare to other galatic map on bnet now, anyway, all the best

 

[BlargIAmDead]

OK, so here's what I'm hearing:

Everything takes too frakkin' long. Roger that. I'm thinking about having the countdown be one year long instead of 2-and-a-half, and maybe decreasing the build and research times by half.

Leaderboards. Yeah, I can do that. I'm thinking of...either one for total planets captured, or one for total ships in the fleet, or both. Sound good?

Better models. I was initially worried that more models might make the map too large to easily host. I take it this isn't an issue?

More Human ships. Presumably the Symphylid ships are fine... Some kind of tender or tanker might be a good idea, that can repair human ships, and transfer mana/power from gas giants to other ships.

More interstellar objects. I'm afraid I can't put in any black holes: there just aren't any in the section of space that ATS covers. And it doesn't make much sense for stars to "grow and explode": even short-lived stars live millions of times longer than the game! But I was thinking of creating "Asteroid" and "Comet" items that give you resources when you pick them up (like the "Bundle of Lumber"). They would have moved randomly around the map, giving more of a reason to explore all the corners. I gave up on it early when I realized that I couldn't get the items to move randomly around the map. Any ideas?

A different battlecruiser attack. I chose the "mortar" projectile for the battlecruiser's second attack, because of that nifty little mushroom cloud. Unfortunately, I don't know how to keep that crater from appearing on the "ground".

"White lines". Is anyone else having this problem? Because I'm not sure what Wyrm's talking about here.

 

[R@i_no_Wyrm]

This, the fog of war after revealed is rather white if you see it.
Picture
XXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXX XXXXX
XXXX 0 XXXXX
XXXX XXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXX

X is black spots, 0 is you.
When u move, this is what happened :

XXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXX\\\\\\XX
XXXX\\\\\\XX 0
XXXX\\\\\\XX
XXXXXXXXXXXXX

with \ as the white ones. I'll upload it if the imageshack become better. it lags.

 

[Psiblade94122]

for the moartor model go into mango<sp?>'s mdoel editor, go into the mpq browser, then war3.mpq look for the moartor. the path shuld be Abilities\Weapons\Mortar\MortarMissile.mdx

go to windows, then nodes. look for the ubersplat node and delete it

go back to we and import the edited model with the same model path. The ground marks shuld be gone

 

[BlargIAmDead]

R@i_no_Wyrm: So the contrast between explored and unexplored areas of the map is what's bothering you? Hm. I can't think of what to do about that, except getting rid of fog-of-war, which I'm not sure I want to do. Have you tried playing with the "Always Visible" option?

Psiblade94122: I haven't had much luck downloading model editors. If I had one, I'd have made my own gas planet model weeks ago! ( ) Do you know if The Hive or someone else has a "nuclear explosion" type model?

 

[Psiblade94122]

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/resource.php?t=62876 Model editor

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...rev=status=g&s=nucear%20explosion&d=list&r=20 Nuke

 

[R@i_no_Wyrm]

If i play with 'always visible' its not too fun...

Why not darkholes? it may turns out very cool...

What about the planet implementing system?
Give calendar please... and if you're on it, why not make the building date?

 

[takethat]

if you travel in space using human's walking speed, that is maybe 10-20km/hr, the space is a big empty and void place.

but if you in a spaceship that is way faster, say like 10k km/hr, you got alot of flying, floating object in space, sometime they crash with each other and cause explosion, blast wave...

not to mention the sun always emitting solar wave, and thousands of stars in the universe are releasing thier gama wave....

when in the night, with our very bloody eye, we can see stars over the sky, even the milky way...

why on earth you give us a plain boring empty void universe?

give mopre decoration, and the map will be good

ps: this map too give boring space
http://www.epicwar.com/maps/52480/

 

[BlargIAmDead]

Psiblade
I'm not having much luck with that editor either. It wouldn't download the first time, and the second time the files were corrupted. It happens a lot on this machine. But hopefully the explosion model will work. Thanks!

R@i_no_Wyrm

If i play with 'always visible' its not too fun...

I was afraid of that. I really don't know what to do in this case; maybe when I switch from a black tileset to one with stars, that'll help.

Why not darkholes? it may turns out very cool...

For the same reason you wouldn't put an iceberg in a Sahara map, or Spartan soldiers in a map about World War II. They don't fit. There are no black holes within the dozen-or-so light-years of Earth that this map covers.

What about the planet implementing system? Give calendar please... and if you're on it, why not make the building date?

As far as a calendar goes, I suppose I can replace "It is now a new month" with "It is now February, March, etc." I don't think I'll be using any "planet implementing system", because the focus of this game is supposed to be your spaceships. Planets are just the places where you build spaceships, get resources to build more spaceships, and research upgrades for spaceships. (Besides, it would make the map just a little too close to Galactic Civilizations" for my comfort! )

Takethat

why on earth you give us a plain boring empty void universe?

Because the real Universe, outside of Star Trek movies, is mostly a plain boring empty void. (Especially in our corner of the Universe, where there are no black holes or nebulae or gamma-ray bursters.) I can see you have an interest in astronomy, and I think you should continue to learn about this wonderful galaxy of ours. But keep in mind that it's a galaxy that's spread very, very thin.

For example: the closest stars are about 4 light-years away. (They're the Proxima and Alpha Centauri stars, which you can find just to the top-left of Sol.) A "light-year" is of course the distance that light travels in a year; moving at just over a million km/hr, that's a little less than nine-and-a-half trillion kilometers. So the very closest star to Earth besides the Sun is over 37 trillion kilometers away...which is a long stretch no matter how fast you're going.

...That said, I am trying to find a tileset with background stars instead of just the black "Abyss" tileset. I know there used to be one on The Hive, but it seems to have disappeared. Anybody know where it went to?

 

[Sirroelivan]

To solve the vastness of space, maybe give ships some form of warp travel?

You could make star doodads from the farseer's missile or something like that?