Project Orbitos

[master maste]

To Recap:
Homing Bullet: I'd like you to
Find out where that delay for firing is coming from and make the bullet very quick firing. (Not auto - I'd like most of these projectiles manual for the time being)
See if you can take the stun off
Try to make the model smaller...more like a bullet size, but seeable - not too small.
Make the "Target" follow the targeted unit

-It's testing me I can tell:banghead:
tried 5 more target abilitys all of them had some problems (including 3 of them having stun, my bad)

-that delay is bugging me too.

-even tried triggers for the stun, didn't work, we need an ability that is target with no stun.

-working on the target trigger.

and that "black hole" ability is screwing my comp up, used it to get away from the archmages and the computer just froze had to force quit. lmao

anyways getting latish since we are going to the airport at 4:30am NZ time lol so I'll continue on this when I get back on sunday ok.

edit:your not being bossy, sometimes I need a bit of force to stay focused lol, yea I get what you mean about doing effects later and that sounds fair and less distracting (just gotta find that ability).
Me doing the work by myself is no problem, as long as you post here as often as you can (then I can figure out some helpful ideas on the problems we may pounce across.)

 

[chovynz]

K! Take care in Aussie. I didn't realise you're in NZ. I started getting hints of it way up there ^ and by the times you are on. Nice to have it confirmed though.

The Black hole is screwing your comp up because its making so many random points and special effects (both of which leak). And, (AFAIK) we can't remove the leaks created by them, using the memory leak removers because they ARE random. The detection for random makes a new random point then removes it.

Basically at this stage I can work on triggers or a map only when I arrange a time with my friend, so that I can use his computer. I'm working on getting my queued design jobs out of the way so I can send my computer away for a week. (I can feel the cold sweats starting already)

I'll be haunting TheHelper Forums at least once a day. And I'm subscribed to this topic specifically, so I'll know when someone has posted something.

Have fun in Aussie

 

[master maste]

cool, thanks, awesome

ya seen that quite a few ppl on here are actually from NZ.

Been sitting here for the last 12mins refreshing waiting for you to post so I can go to bed lol. get that computer sent away

 

[chovynz]

I was at work today when My brain Farted! And an exciting fart it was too...

What if one of the AoE abilities / spells that we include in this map is a time one...a map wide time slowing kinda bullet time ability.
Ever played Wacky Wheels, or Crash Team Racing, or numerous other racing and space battle games?

How it works is like this: One player activates the ChronoGrip. All the other ppllaayyeerrss sloooooooowwwwww dddddoooooowwwwwnnnnn.

Theres a couple of ways to do this; 1) speed up the triggering player / unit or 2) slow everyone one else down. What often happens in Multiplayer games is the first. Think of Star Wars and you'll know what I mean about the difference between Single player and Multiplayer Star Wars Speed. When Speed is activated on Single player, the computer characters slow down and you get a sort of shadowy edging around the corners of the screen. In Multiplayer you get multiple images of yourself streaming off your character and the others aren't effected.

What I'm hoping to do here is something similar but in reverse. When you click on ChronoGrip, everyone else slows down with the multi images streaming off them. You move at normal speed, maybe with a little boost. You can use this ability either as a defenseive or offensive ability. Kill them while they are slow and sluggish, or escape from being cained.

I'm thinking a 5-7 second effect with a fairly large cooldown. Maybe 2 minutes or something.

I have no idea what the anti-weapon for sometihng like this would be. Maybe a Chrono-Bubble around the ship or something. (Basically it's just a trigger check item - If player has Chrono-Bubble, then ignore the rest of the actions.)

 

[Lunarios]

Your brain is farting to much. I feel the need to compete.

But first a quote from a good book

"and your fart has drawn out other farts"

Now.

I confess that I have skipped over large sections of the thread, but here a concept that I came up with about 30 seconds ago.

'...And due to the massive stock of abilties to use, both offensive and defensive, a new system needs to be in place to replace the current system. The following system is both new and fresh to Wacraft.

Everyone knows videogames. Everyone knows the ones where you jam keys in a paticular order to do a special move, or combo as it is referred to. I propose a simple way to do this for a space fighting game. Abilties can be clustered into 4 main categories. Offensive, Defensive, Mobility and Supply. Each of these categories would have two things, a spell book, and a key board node. A key board node would be a certain key that is surrounded by other keys. For example, the S node. It is surrounded by W,E,D,X,Z,A, and Q. These could represent mobility. So if you wanted to flip 180 degreeds in space, you would acess the lateral jets button. This might take a huge 2 seconds game time to do. Or, you could press the mobility node key, S, and than the Flip key, W. A simple combo, S+W. Indeed, this system would be better suited to touch typists and people with massive practice, but it provides a huge amount of flexibility when dealing with such maters as activiating your defensive sheilds fast enough. But, there are only 3 keyboard nodes. The answer? Make different nodes. The human fingers rest in the semi-circle position, so, a potential node would be the G node, with F,R,T,Y,H. A go back key would be nessecary for mistyping, so we could use a standard key, perhaps B.

Or we could use a tottaly different system than nodes. First, we identify the keys that were using. C,V,B,N are our acess keys, to get into the spell book. Than M is the escape key. Than we have 9 keys above those, F,G,H,J,R,T,Y,U,I, which would be hotkeyed to the abilties.

At any rate, this system allows the storage of up to 36 abilties, or many more by using the entire bottom row as a acess keys.''

I'm not done quite yet.

"In space, a spacecraft does not need countinous thrust to move. It simply has to get up to speed, than let go. What do I propose? A realistic system where you control you move rate, by setting it using a chat command, or a hotkey. Using the trigger used to make things slide, you could have the unit slide across space. The rate of sliding would be controlled by a chat command, or the hotkey thing. 0 is stationary, 20 is high speed. The best way to do this would probably be a chat command, but you could have a whole acess key devoted to speeds. You could have stationary, low power, than notching up from there."

I'm still not done dammit.

"Space stations are a critical part of the world. Well there forebearers. Using massive resources, you could in effect establish a space station, which orbits around the moon. A complex trigger to be sure, but the possbilities are great. Your space station could effectively be your moon, where you can put lasers and such. Any enemy unit that gets to close takes heavy damage. (Shit, I didn't know crashing into the moon would break anything). Stations can only be in one orbit, and are constructed in your base. Space stations only move in one orbit and at one speed to minimize work. Ships can also load themselves into stations, where they get repaired."

Now I'm done.

What do you think?

 

[chovynz]

Very Interesting, 'glasshopa.' You seem to be catching the farted direction my brain is heading. Your post is very appropose. Very.

Your brain is farting to much. I feel the need to compete.

But first a quote from a good book

"and your fart has drawn out other farts"

Good. That's what I hoped would happen! Keep them farts coming.

Now.

I confess that I have skipped over large sections of the thread, but here a concept that I came up with about 30 seconds ago.

'...And due to the massive stock of abilties to use, both offensive and defensive, a new system needs to be in place to replace the current system. The following system is both new and fresh to Wacraft.

<Gasp!> You're not serious? "You slappa mah face wit a cold fish, and fart in mah gen-er-eal dire-ection??!" First you skip my thread? then you change the system? how could you? Guards!

Everyone knows videogames. Everyone knows the ones where you jam keys in a paticular order to do a special move, or combo as it is referred to. I propose a simple way to do this for a space fighting game. Abilties can be clustered into 4 main categories. Offensive, Defensive, Mobility and Supply. Each of these categories would have two things, a spell book, and a key board node. A key board node would be a certain key that is surrounded by other keys. For example, the S node. It is surrounded by W,E,D,X,Z,A, and Q. These could represent mobility. So if you wanted to flip 180 degreeds in space, you would acess the lateral jets button. This might take a huge 2 seconds game time to do. Or, you could press the mobility node key, S, and than the Flip key, W. A simple combo, S+W. Indeed, this system would be better suited to touch typists and people with massive practice, but it provides a huge amount of flexibility when dealing with such maters as activiating your defensive sheilds fast enough. But, there are only 3 keyboard nodes. The answer? Make different nodes. The human fingers rest in the semi-circle position, so, a potential node would be the G node, with F,R,T,Y,H. A go back key would be nessecary for mistyping, so we could use a standard key, perhaps B.

Excellent! Here's a quote of mine.

7) Hotkey conflicts - changed from H (button for hold) to Q. Ill explain this later.

See where this was / is heading? Similar ideas. Although to be honest, the first time I was thinking about the strategic value of Replayability (each time you spawn), I decided to only use a limited amount of modules (items & abilities) for each ship. Made sense at first.

Your idea brings some things into focus and asks the question: "why am i sticking to limiting the weapons and sheilds of players?" I need to think on this more as it changes the gameplay (but not the abilities) quite significantly. I see two options now.

1)my original idea: limit the player to a specified amount of modules - possibly dependant on race (because you only have one ship, ship selection doesn't come into it - maybe - watch this space ). What this sytem does is make the player choose what they want to do and play strategically. Do I carry 6 weapons in the hope that my kick-ass firepower will destroy my opponents before they get me, but wait I have weak sheilds? Do I carry 6 shields in the hope that my opponents dont pick the one weapon I dont have a defense against? Or do I mix and matching weapons and defense hoping I can kill and run before someone gets me with a weapon that I don't have a defense against?

OR

2)Everyone has (or can have, given enough money) all weapons and all defense abilities (purchasable at your base). This makes it so the player can defend against the Ion Cannon, defend against the Rail Gun in the next second, fire with a plasma cloud, thrust away, defend against the lightning weapon, fire with the homing missle, ECM the mines he's about to run into, spin around and fire the MAG at the **** whos been pasting his tail,

The 2nd is veeeeery attractive to me....veeerryy attractive. This is more the almost click fest feel that im after as well. Even though it's not 'realistic' (how deep is YOUR pockets?) I think it's actually the 'funner' option.

I think....we need to make....both systems...and test them which is better for the game. I think the 2nd would be easier to make so I think we'll go with that at first. We can limit the modules later if need be.

Or we could use a tottaly different system than nodes. First, we identify the keys that were using. C,V,B,N are our acess keys, to get into the spell book. Than M is the escape key. Than we have 9 keys above those, F,G,H,J,R,T,Y,U,I, which would be hotkeyed to the abilties.

At any rate, this system allows the storage of up to 36 abilties, or many more by using the entire bottom row as a acess keys.''

I like the other one better. But I'll keep this in mind too, and see which is better. Although, this system would provide for thrust easier than the other system. And thinking about it we read from left to right, so why not make the weapons selection as such as well?
simplist, basic, or least powerful weapon at the left to the most complex, powerful etc at the right.
z,x,c,v,b,n,m = M being the most dangerous weapons (and probably the longest cooldown times as well.

I'm not done quite yet.

"In space, a spacecraft does not need countinous thrust to move. It simply has to get up to speed, than let go. What do I propose? A realistic system where you control you move rate, by setting it using a chat command, or a hotkey. Using the trigger used to make things slide, you could have the unit slide across space. The rate of sliding would be controlled by a chat command, or the hotkey thing. 0 is stationary, 20 is high speed. The best way to do this would probably be a chat command, but you could have a whole acess key devoted to speeds. You could have stationary, low power, than notching up from there."

So every unit would slide? Plus homing weapons, plus moon orbiting bases, plus the dummy units. Hmm. I hope it wont lag. Although, with only...24 player units (1 ship & 1 base per player), and a dummy unit or few per weapon, and shields (if any); we might be looking at...up to 100 units at any one time? Thats not very much compared to maps like StarCraft Zone Control, or even some melee maps. So lag shouldn't be a problem if the triggers are done right.

What about inertia? Do I want that in this map or no? That's what sliding is, but what about changing direction? Most slides I've seen change direction instantly. Or is that covered in some of the advanced sliding triggers? Hmm.. I'll need to look into that.

The mobility abilties idea is great. I've been thinking how to include thrust, but until now I couldn't think of anything viable. This system of hotkeys will allow for that aswell as making space for things such as 'flip (or spin) 180', vector left / right, 'sliding strafe', 'circling strafe' (particularly for the channeling energy weapon I have in mind - this orbits the target, and grips the target in a tractor beam, while shooting at the target, with the attacking player able to disnegage at will or change the orbiting direction,) 'Warp' (pretty much blink), and some others.

I'm still not done dammit.

"Space stations are a critical part of the world. Well there forebearers. Using massive resources, you could in effect establish a space station, which orbits around the moon. A complex trigger to be sure, but the possbilities are great. Your space station could effectively be your moon, where you can put lasers and such. Any enemy unit that gets to close takes heavy damage. (Shit, I didn't know crashing into the moon would break anything). Stations can only be in one orbit, and are constructed in your base. Space stations only move in one orbit and at one speed to minimize work. Ships can also load themselves into stations, where they get repaired."

Now I'm done.

What do you think?

Well, The player bases are already established and built (you don't build them yourself). Effectively the goal of this game is to wipe out the other players bases using your skill and abilities whilst defending your own base. And the trigger isn't actually all that complex. In fact Daelin has already kindly provided us with one - Dynamic Shapes in Gui. All we need to do is instead of using dummy units or effects, is use the trigger for the moon orbiting base motions. Not really anything else we need to do with that except change the timing and locations (a REALLY BIG circle, and slowing the arcs down.)

Putting weapons and defenses on a player base was one of my original ideas, but I dont want players to find it TOO hard to destroy a base. So taking heavy damage might be reduced to take some damage...IDK...im still finalising that idea. Some one suggested putting buildable player bases on the moon, but I'm not sure I like that idea as it takes the focus of the game from the player bases to the moon. I want the moon / asteroid to be more of a terrain / obstacle / weapons blocker that you play around and not on.

Yup the units should be able to dock on their bases. Thats in my original post too. In fact most of that last bit of yours is the idea I want to use for Project: Orbits, so I think you're on the same wave length as me.

All in all, very good post, and some brilliant idea in there too. I actually went "SH**! HE's A GENIUS!" +rep for you!

Question: Why have you put quotes around most of your post?

 

[Lunarios]

Because they are quoted from myself.

Thank you for the complements. . You represent what I tried to do but couldn't, so I must appluade you for atleast getting this far. +rep

 

[spyre03]

first space battle map?

 

[chovynz]

first space battle map?

As in my first? Or first in warcraft?

Yes this is my first space battle map.

No, I think there have been other space battle maps, but not like this that I've seen. Also there are other similar maps out there using boats. But again, not the same way we are doing it

Because they are quoted from myself.

Thank you for the complements. . You represent what I tried to do but couldn't, so I must appluade you for atleast getting this far. +rep

lol. I haven't got very far with it. Just nutted out a lot of the ideas. I can't wait to actually be useful on my own map!!! (cd rack broken blahblahblah)
Thnx for rep

 

[Lunarios]

Sticking to the fart terminology...
BBBB

Bean Burrito Brain Bomb

First, I propose classes that apply to all races, with small race based customiations. The classes would be as follows.

-Scout: The only ship cabaple of reaching Mach 20. By default is has high plasma and medium laser shields used to sustain the heavy acceleration it is capable of. To maintain the ability to accelerate quickly, the scout has to be relatively light in terms of extended weapony and armor.

Special Ability: Magnetic Pulse : Instantly takes the scout up to mach 20, and does intense damage to anything it passes through for the next 4 seconds. Heres a story I made up to go with it: A pulsar emits incredible jets of ionized gas, going at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Using deflectors, the scout can effectiely target the jets the same direction, causing massive acceleration. (Damage type plasam/laser)

-Hellion: A ship that has the greatest weapon capacity, having 2-3 nodes devoted to weaponry. To maintain its considerable speed of 15 mach, it has to cut back on everything else, except for shields.

Special Ability: Pulse Dragoon: Sends a fast homing missile, which disables shields.

-Space Tank: A virtually all armor ship, defaulted with basic shields for all types of attacks. Is a Hellion except with armor instead of weaponry.

Special Ability: Gravity Shields: Gives the ship 99% damage reductions for a short time.

-Steel Slug: A heavy duty everything-but-speed ship. Like the Space tank and hellion combined except with a miserable 10 mach speed.

Special Ability: Capture: Shoots the engines of a ship, Making it go down to mach 3, which no speed control, disables mobility section.

Each race gets a different decoration for your ship. If your undead, you get ghoul corpses all over your ship, and etc.

 

[chovynz]

Well I can tell you are on the same fartlength that I am, but i didnt want to bring this kinda thing up until a bit later. I wanted to get the weapons and shields working before adding things like skins and models. (To the extent that I'm still using paladins in my test )

At least the idea's on record now. Thanks Lunar. I know you've come up with ideas - do you want to work on the project as well? Anyone is welcome to as long as they ask me first; mainly so I can find a place for them, and so I know who's active.

If you do want to work in this team, what are your strengths? What are your weakness?

 

[Lunarios]

My fine sir, I would adore working on this project.

Weaknesses: JASS, advanced triggers, memory leaks.
Strengths: Terrain, Objects, Ideas.

My wc3 name of late is Ecton, although I did use Lunarios is the past.

(Knights, this was partially directed at you)

 

[chovynz]

Welcome Aboard Systems Checker Specialist Ectonalunarios

I have a moon already but I want to see what you come up with. Your first mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create a 64 x 64 map with the following specifications:

• A moon in the center
  • The moon can be an asteroid
  • The moon can be many doodads or a single unit...up to you
• If you're up to it, make the ground invisible

Your second mission should you succeed with the first, is to create a single base with the following requirements:

• Able to move
• Very Low Movement Speed
• Not be based on a person unit
• Have some attacking ability; projectiles prefered
• Be able to load units.

In the event of an emeregency, we have no oxygen masks. The procedure to follow is such 1) tuck your arms in at your sides, 2) Bend your head forward, 3) Kiss your ass goodbye. No responsibility will be assumed if you are discovered in such a position. This message will self-immolate after the beep.

 

[Lunarios]

Yes sir Ranking Brigade Commander Long-Ass-Name!

 

[master maste]

Weapons master chief master maste reporting for duty (again)

While I was on holiday I checked this thread (saw you guys brain farting (what ever that is)), and I'm gonna make this homing bullet thing work (got some ideas)

Also I saw something (it was in a rush) about increasing the speed of a unit as an ability, and I'll create a map and show you ok.

Estimated time: 5 hours + 4 more lol

 

[chovynz]

Welcome Back Weapons Master Chief Master Maste.

Your Eta has expired. What have you got? Oh and I'm docking your pay. (hmm...(33% + 12.5%) + GUI tax, - (expenses * 2) / ((3Cos - Unit facing Building) - (Armiture expenditure + holistic healing) = still equal 0)

Apart from the silliness (im tired) this is just a note to say I'll be offline for about a week while my computer is in the shop. (Get better soon baby!)
Oh I'll be around...but not as much.

Ecton: keep them brain farts coming.
Master: Doing good!

 

[Lunarios]

Okay, since I'm outa beans for the moment, I'll bring up some issues.

"How will abilities be removed and added"

If I'm correct, this trigger will be incredibly big. Lets assume we have 100 abilities. Thats ether 100 small triggers, 1 one huge one. I doubt that can be condensed, but what if?

"Should the cost of having auto-fire added to abilities relate directly to the cooldown of the ability?"

I think yes, because the lower to cooldown for the ability, the more important it is for auto-fire to be added. Auto-fire weapons should just cost more. A possbile formula is "Shots per second/minute + the original price of non-auto-fire".

"Should there be super long range weapons, and should they be only equipable to bases/large ships/space stations/moon?

I'm stuck for this one. It enhances gameplay to have this option, I mean this definetly adds to strategy and tactical potential. On the other hand, they would definetly be called cheap and gay. In my opinion, they should exist, but are confined to certain ships and structures, and cost alot more gold.

 

[chovynz]

Well - even though I can't test things - I can comment. First off, are you quoting yourself again? You have an odd way of posting. Is it like; you talk to yourself while reading my posts then quote them because you said them to yourself? How is it working? Not a bother just curious really.

Okay, since I'm outa beans for the moment, I'll bring up some issues.

"How will abilities be removed and added"

If I'm correct, this trigger will be incredibly big. Lets assume we have 100 abilities. Thats ether 100 small triggers, 1 one huge one. I doubt that can be condensed, but what if?

You'll get that in any map. But since we're talking about our abilities there's some things I think you're not thinking about. Remember your keyboard node comments? Great idea, and I'm hooked on it. I'd love to have that implemented in this game. Which means each ability (and hence trigger) will be assigned a certain place in the nodal system. Which also means that they need to be separate triggers for each weapon and defense. And I'd prefer it that way for debugging purposes too. I dont want to have to wade through hundreds of lines of code to find a "+15" which should be "-" instead. God knows I do that enough already. No, sorry, I'd prefer to have separate triggers for each ability.

Why is it that people on this forum seem to want to put everything in one trigger? It's not like its any more work to make a separate trigger. And it makes it difficult to see where a problem is.

The other thing with the node system is all abilities will be available, but not neccessarily enabled. So it negates the removing abilities bit anyway. (Meh, remove / enable = the same amount of work.)

"Should the cost of having auto-fire added to abilities relate directly to the cooldown of the ability?"

I think yes, because the lower to cooldown for the ability, the more important it is for auto-fire to be added. Auto-fire weapons should just cost more. A possbile formula is "Shots per second/minute + the original price of non-auto-fire".

Hmmmm. Auto-fire. I've been playing around with the idea of auto-fire abilities....I can see the possibilities, but I can also see some pitfalls; the main ones being it takes the control away from the player. IDK. hmmm. The idea I had for auto-fire abilities was turrets of certain types (bullets, missiles, ion). These could be destroyed in a firefight, where as the normal guns wouldn't be able to be destroyed. (Actually now that I have written the previous i'm thinking why not? Both would be externally mounted. This would be low-medium chance of the weps being damaged I think. You'd have to go back to base to buy some more.)

As for your post, I think thats fair enough. we might have to tweak the cost and fire rate.

"Should there be super long range weapons, and should they be only equipable to bases/large ships/space stations/moon?

I'm stuck for this one. It enhances gameplay to have this option, I mean this definetly adds to strategy and tactical potential. On the other hand, they would definetly be called cheap and gay. In my opinion, they should exist, but are confined to certain ships and structures, and cost alot more gold.

I think you're a bit off on this one. The objective is to destroy the bases. If the bases had long range guns, all you'd need to do is target someone else's base with your base guns. Gameover. Nah I dont want long range guns on the bases. But long range guns on ships? Yes, that I do want. And when you attack someone else's base they'll be alerted so they can come deal with you.

For the moment I want them available to all ships (seeing as I only want one type of ship for now this shouldn't be a problem.) Yeah I think they will cost more. Not sure how much though. I need to plan out the cost ratio, but again this is something we can tweak once we have the systems running. I think for our beta test's we might make it no cost and just see how they all work together.

 

[Lunarios]

I forgot to mention a major point about long rangers. In space, you have unlimited range. However, you don't have unlimited resolution on your cameras. The long rangers at base could have fairly big range, but not like firing at the base across the moon. More like neighboring bases if able to hit bases at all.

Second, here a formula I made up for evaluating towers. Get your calculators out.

Range X 2 X Shots per second X Damage X Number of Projectiles.

I confess, this number is rather big huge large. But it is precise. This could be the base for our formula. The last 3 variables are the damage per second. The question is, how do we factor in the range. We could do the LOD (Line of Damage) which is the range squared, but that messes up long range units, they get exagerated. Or we could do the flat range, which I think is best. Lets do a test.

Long Range Unit (Range x Damage Per Sec)
500 x 10 = 5000
Short Range Unit
250 x 20 = 5000

Now the question is, which weapon is actually better. Who wants to do a test?

 

[master maste]

still working on the abilitys. (they arent doing what I want them to do.:nuts: )

Lunarios you made a map to test out your stuff yet. . .