Project Orbitos

[chovynz]

Uh...ok...

I like that your coming up with ideas, but I'd like to (at least!) finish the basic simple concept of 12 players with a single unit, dogfighting it out. I think base warp and mapping can wait. How about figuring out what an ion cannon should look like?

BTW I got my computer back, so I'm finally able to join you guys and jump on the map-wagon and do some useful stuff on my own maps! yay me! And I can post proper triggers now instead of going off memory! And I can help more people again! And...and...I'm excited!

Ecton: I love your ecton map test! its...great! it's partly exactly what I want!! Thank you. The terrain IS what I want for Orbitos. It's interesting when you give someone a brief what they come up with. I wasn't thinking anything like the burrows when I said what I said about movable base load units etc. Good job. We'll need to tweak that, but its a good starting point.

The moon is interesting moving around like that and I love how it rotates, however....however. I think it might be better than what I came up with. But It's not quite what I'm after yet.

You cannot move while in a node. Is this a bad thing ?

What do you mean? In a keyboard node?If thats what you mean, no i dont thinks its a bad thing. Same thing would happen if you're in command of a ship and you fiddle around at the weapons station. You supposed to be in command, not looking at the weapons readouts...if that made sense.

 

[Lunarios]

New Test of motion systems. Success!

I have made a speed trigger, you set your speed, 1-20. You can do turns and flips. Its excellent!

Except.

You can't cast spells while moving.

I've tried this, and added a trigger based subsitute, which only works about 1/2 the time.

I'm currently in the process of revising a idea which might solve the problem, but for the moment I'm tottaly dead. The map is attached.

One your ion cannon note, there are quite literally zillions of models. I'll post some shots of the more promising ones later.

 

[chovynz]

Can't see anythiing. Fog is all over the place. I think its the wrong map as after I put a paladin in the map he just freaks out. (Goes all over the place almost instantly.)

I dont know what your gonna use this for. It ain't part of my map. EDIT: After a few hours, I came back and read what you said up there again....I think I know what your getting at now. It's almost using a sliding thing right? Just the distance is set too large right?

As for your mapping idea check this out. We might be able to modify it to suit what we want.

EDIT2: Master Maste: You remember that weird delay on the bullet? I found out what it was...Unit animation backswing or blend time. I've set that to zero: now there's hardly any delay on the ability. See map for a fun 1P game. Push arrow keys up or down to level up or level down your hero.

I had a fartthought recently. I've noticed that units have a set speed limit. It's difficult to make them faster or whatnot (Gameplay constants then object editor then stats etc...). Projectiles do not seem to have this limit (only one thing to set in object editor - see map.)
What if the bases we have are the heros, and when we create a ship, its a projectile that is selectable and controllable by the player? This way we have no limit to our ship speeds.

Unless there's an easier way around the unit speed limit...

Just a thought.

 

[Lunarios]

Aparently we had no idea about what we are talking about.

I did a test on the sliding system. You could use the arrow keys to manuver, and was meant to look like the system I'm assuming you accepted.

It was the slide engine system, where you slid around and such.

It might have looked jumpy because of a difference in our computers.

The point of the map was to test how weither you could target abiltieis while in slide (GUI).

You can't target abiltieis in that kind of slide.

Otherwise it was to prove that sliding does work, as well as turning and flips.

On another note, can you post a picture or something of the ideas of mine that you have accepted or rejected?

Edit: I'm not sure about the projectile thing. I'm pretty sure we can achieve the results we want with units. Maybe setting move speed via triggers with limits disabled

 

[chovynz]

Sounds like I might've stepped on some toes there. Sorry if that's the case. I'll try to clear things up.

Ok, where to begin? (I feel a long post coming on ;-) )
Movement: I still haven't decided on the arrows keys for movement, so there are two trains of thought for movement.
1) Normal mouse click and we use the keyboard nodes for weps and def.
2) Sliding arrows for movement and mouse (or keyboard nodes) for combat.

Pro
1) Easiest to trigger, Easiest to use, User friendly, Normal way of doing things - with a twist, Little learning curve.
2) Nicer space feeling, Flips and Twists,

Con
1) Might not easily allow for the complicated manouvers we are aiming for (channeling tractor while attacking while strafing while using thrust)
2) Possible (too many keys pushed at same time) key conflicts, has to be done in JASS if we want extended keyboard.

I like the sliding idea but it needs tweaking. The sliding can be done with either arrow keys or mouse so that's just a preference for control systems. I prefer mouse at the moment.

On another note, can you post a picture or something of the ideas of mine that you have accepted or rejected?

You have a lot of good ideas, most of which I have neither accepted nor rejected yet. For a lot of the ideas we just aren't in the right place to implement them yet. We as a team haven't been able to test most of the ideas that we as a team have come up with.

I personally like to make things as simple as possible at the begining of a map. Especially when it comes to effects or what something looks like. For example the map I've just posted has a shockwave spell as the stand in for the bullet. What the bullet actually looks like doesn't matter at the moment, all it need to do is act like a bullet.

In response to your question though here's the ideas we've got so far.

Accepted

Rejected.

Noncomittal or undecided

• 
  plot ... that it's like the Starcraft guys have found Warcraft guys and taken them into space where they all fight over the moon"
  
• 
  Use the moon as a unit, which you can put items into, with the phoneix fire ability. When a unit gets close enough to the moon, they get control of the unit.
  
• 
  The moon is a small dab of terrain,
  
  and you place turrets on it. The terrain could chance every game,
  
  and there would be a control becon at the center of the moon.
  
• Effectively, you could make anything on the moon.
  
  Repair base, respawner.
  
• 
  a new system needs to be in place...
  
  
  Abilties can be clustered into 4 main categories. Offensive, Defensive, Mobility and Supply....
  
  a spell book, and a key board node....
  
  A key board node would be a certain key that is surrounded by other keys. ...
  
  So if you wanted to flip 180 degreeds in space, you would acess the lateral jets button. ...
  
  A simple combo,
  
  S+W. ... 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....
  
  many more by using the entire bottom row as a acess keys.'' (for both access and selection)
  
• "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." "...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."
  
  
  

Continued...(due to image limits)

 

[chovynz]

• "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." (I'm using stations / bases interchangably. They are the same thing.)
  
• 
  First, I propose classes that apply to all races, with small race based customiations. The classes would be as follows.
  
  -Scout: ... description condensed
  -Hellion: ... description condensed
  -Space Tank: ... description condensed
  -Steel Slug: ... description condensed
  
  Each race gets a different decoration for your ship. If your undead, you get ghoul corpses all over your ship, and etc. Too soon. We haven't sussed out the weapons yet. I want to include race specific models for ships and bases but we need to concentrate on the weapons and defense systems first.
  
• "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". - formula and method needs tweaking
  
  
  
  "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 ... 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 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? I think you might be getting too realistic here. Cameras?? Towers?? And I don't get your LRU 500 x 10 = 5000 bit either. Why not just set the range to something extreme (say 5000) and tweak the damage to whatever we need after the first beta test?
  
• 
  Shit, hes chasing me like a squirrel after nuts" -That still makes me LOLROFL. That's the feeling I want someone playing this game to feel. Pro's at this game still have to watch our for nub's because you can't have defense for every weapon. Balance is key. Strategic playing. That's why I want to focus on the weps and def systems first. We can add other things later if the game needs them.
  
• 
  pissed off pilot is now at a turret on the moon. -the rest of the turret idea needs some nutting out. And the turret idea changes the moon idea too depending on what we choose for the turret (i.e Mechs Vs Buildings
  
• 
  tractor beam. - good idea. That is one of the channeling abilities I want

 

[chovynz]

• 
  You can steal enemy technology, which gives you gold. You have a very LOW chance of doing this. It can only be done in battle, via an ability. When you are allied, you automatically share gold.
  
• 
  Instead of being a turret, you could be an orbiting space station. You can do the following things. -too much like your own base
  
• 
  .Send mining probes to mine the moon (long casting time with good rewards. Mining is done by using a ability, and drop off is done using an ability.
  
• 
  Deploy repair drones to repair others
  
• 
  Deploy small fighter ships (like needing 48 to kill a ship).
  
• 
  Make advanced weaponry (special weapons and such).
  
• 
  Purchase armor and weapons.
  
• ----A extension on the turret would be as follows.
• 
  Shoot down enemy craft by using almost unlimited range weapons (accuracy maybe not).
  
• 
  Defend your team
  
• 
  Provide coverage for minign probes.
  
• 
  So recon operations on enemy units.
  
• 
  Buy armor and weapons (special weapons available).
  
• 
  ---The space station and turret would only be available in team modes (3+) because of the relatively inflexible roles of space station and turret. - I was thinking more *dead* people can either take control over a turret on the moon or build a new ship at their base.
  
• 
  Mapping: You can gain the skill mapping, which tells you your global coordinates, which can be later used to warp too. To map, simple navigate to your position. The scout comes with mapping. A follow up skill would be deploy scout driod, which would not be sliding engine powered (SEP), because it is nearly impossible to control to SEP units at once. Space stations can learn this ability also, except a slightly different more complex driod, with a longer summon duriation (SD). A final follow-up would be a SPS (Space positioning system). When you ping a location while the SPS is on (ability activated) It tells you the coordinates. - Even though I've put undecided I like this idea quite a lot. It'll need to be worked like bread dough but I think the concept is good.
  
  
  
  Warp: This is a follow up on your current warp. Using a massive about of gold, you can purchase a warp engine for your base. Every 2 minutes you can warp your base to a different location. This has seige posibilities as well. You can stock your base with heavy artilllery and than move into range. A simple analogy would be "Having a king lead the charge". Final note. All abilities have an ability called "Impact" . If another building gets to near to it, than they damage each other. -And even though I've put undecided I am leaning towards not liking this idea. Sry.

 

[chovynz]

I dont think I've ever posted that much! I need a beer.
Just a note. We need to see maps and screenshots to be able to critique what each other is doing. When I post maps or ideas feel free to be critics about anything. I want this map to be the best it can be and I can only do that with other people's help. I'm not afraid of you saying "this idea sux" or "needs work" or "is great!" even.

I'm listening to you both (and to other peoples post in here) and I specifically value both Ecton and Master's opinions and feedback, but we really don't have enough progress on the basic game to continue adding more ideas that could be added in a later release.

 

[Lunarios]

O.O

Wow.

Big time Wow.

Wow.

Wow.


Wow.


Errrr...

Wow.

Thank you lol, needed that

Wow.

 

[master maste]

If you wanted it to be more realistic e.g. when you go to close to the moon you take damage, then you should make it so if you come too close to a unit then both of the ships take damage. . . that way some people could suicide people if they were both low on health. . .

what do you think or ?

 

[Lunarios]

Only one thing to say in response

"Shit, I didn't know crashing into the moon would damage the ship, honest!"


Second, I beilive that we were discussing the speed limit on ships.

Cruise mode. Within cruise mode you have less HP, cannot fire any main weaponry, and you can go alot faster.

It is demostrated in my useless map above enwhich you can conveintly not cast any main spells, I'm not even sure if auto-fire spells work, and you can go at very, very high speeds. However, in cruise mode you are much more vulnerable to any type of weaponry, as sheilds don't work nearly as well when projectiles hit with 2 times the force.

Since people can just load up on autofire weapons and just run circles around the enemy, there would have to be some simple way of countering autofire weapons.

Secondly, what more is there to nut out about weapons and defense systems?

 

[chovynz]

@Master - thats the point of this mod. I dont WANT it realistic. I want it fun.
Fun to me means click-fest, tension, watching my back, thinking about what im doing, being strategic so i can win, fairness, having a challenge to overcome, playing with other players knowing that if I don't watch myself they could win, simplicity of use but fun, good eye candy (not just any old eye candy, but GOOD eye candy), No lagging or crashes = fun

I do like the idea of suicides though, but <shrug> we'll see.

@Lunarios
Now I understand what you meant and are trying to do I think that's a cool idea too. But - (theres always a but) what I think should happen is yes, a faster speed for cruise mode is good, but not super fast - just faster than 'normal fastest'
'Normal fastest' would be 'normal' where you can fire and put shields up etc...
'Cruise' would be that idea of yours, which disables weapons and shields, but enables you to move quite faster than 'normal fastest.' Good for escapes and like Master said suicides. Good job both of you.

What else is there to nut out? We haven't even started on ions, nukes, time, mines yet. And we need to create the anti weapons so they work. Then get all them working MUIable. Then finalise the terrain and stars. Then work out if we're gonna have turrets as immovable or movable...then what models, then what weapons for the turrets.

Trust me. We have a bit to go yet before I even want to start looking at things like base warping or location pingers.

 

[master maste]

been doing research on a few other older wc3 space maps, and unwc3 maps (uncluding escape velocity(download it)) so that I can see what kind of features they had (then we can better it).

How exactly do you make a spell MUI?

 

[chovynz]

It needs to be leak free and lag free.

http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showthread.php?t=46982
http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showpost.php?p=377574&postcount=11
http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showpost.php?p=377579&postcount=13
http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showpost.php?p=377737&postcount=20

check out some of the links in 13

 

[master maste]

looks like you want to learn jass. . . you can always just highlight the trigger and go convert to custom text (which makes it jass) but I dont think this is as effective as jass, but still better than Gui.

 

[chovynz]

I dont WANT to learn jass. But I want my maps playable without lag or leak. So I need to learn how to remove leaks and make spells MUI (multi-user-instancebility.) I don't need to learn JASS to be able to do that, but by the looks of it and the comments from all over the place it greatly helps.

There are ways to do the things I need for MUI in WEGUI, but it's more difficult apparently.

Course I'm talking out of a hole in my head too..so...

 

[Lunarios]

If worst comes to worst, than we can always recruit a JASS master.

But hopefully, I will never see the person who masters that ebil art.

Okay, first for the general defection trigger.

Events:

Unit - A unit Finishes casting an ability

Conditions:

(Ability being cast) Equal to Ion Beam

Actions:

If (All Conditions are True) then do (Then Actions) else do (Else Actions)
If - Conditions
((Target unit of ability being cast) has buff Ion Shielding) Equal to True
Then - Actions
Unit - Set life of (Target unit of ability being cast) to ((Life of (Triggering unit)) + 50.00)
Else - Actions
Do nothing


Okay, this would be a base trigger. This trigger ultimately heals a certain amount of damage done by the Ion Beam. We could have it heal 50% of the damage done, or maybe 100%. We could also have it subtract mana.

An addition to this trigger would be to spawn a dummy unit who would cast the ability right back.

Unfortunetly, you would need a trigger like this for every offensive ability.


Secondly, I have some idea on Ions.

Ions are the only weapon that can destroy a ship in a single hit. When a ionizing beam hits its target substance, it slowly becomes positiively charged. When a block of anything is positively charged, its own magnetic unarraction rips it apart. Unfortunetly, Ion beams are far to slow to be used in battke. However, when heavily focused, a steady stream o particles push them selves off of the target. Occasionally, the ions find a weak spot within the ship, and the magnetics rip the fault much wider, doing heavy damage. Unfortunetly, these areas upon a ship are most heavily gaurded, so the chances are ridiclously low. (Shots per minute x 75).

Any ion weapon has a trigger based critical strike, with additonal affects when nessecary.

What do you think?

 

[chovynz]

If worst comes to worst, than we can always recruit a JASS master.

True. I'm hoping we can manage without that. But whatever works.

But hopefully, I will never see the person who masters that ebil art.

Okay, first for the general defection trigger.

Events:

Unit - A unit Finishes casting an ability

Conditions:

(Ability being cast) Equal to Ion Beam

Actions:

If (All Conditions are True) then do (Then Actions) else do (Else Actions)
If - Conditions
((Target unit of ability being cast) has buff Ion Shielding) Equal to True
Then - Actions
Unit - Set life of (Target unit of ability being cast) to ((Life of (Triggering unit)) + 50.00)
Else - Actions
Do nothing


Okay, this would be a base trigger. This trigger ultimately heals a certain amount of damage done by the Ion Beam. We could have it heal 50% of the damage done, or maybe 100%. We could also have it subtract mana.

hmmm. How about just make the Ion Beam do no damage? Change the "Finishes casting an ability" to "Starts the effect of an ability" then make the ion dummy do no damage to target with appropriate Ion beam and shielding effects? Note: I do not want the shields to be buffs, but actual toggelable abilities or items that can turned on or off. First spell that comes to mind is Mana Shield.

An addition to this trigger would be to spawn a dummy unit who would cast the ability right back.

Unfortunetly, you would need a trigger like this for every offensive ability.

Exactly! Now your catching on!

. I never wanted to do a single trigger for all the attacks or whatever you are thinking here. So making a trigger for every offensive ability is exactly what i'm aiming at. Much easier to see if things are working the way they should.

Secondly, I have some idea on Ions.

Ions are the only weapon that can destroy a ship in a single hit. When a ionizing beam hits its target substance, it slowly becomes positiively charged. When a block of anything is positively charged, its own magnetic unarraction rips it apart. Unfortunetly, Ion beams are far to slow to be used in battke. However, when heavily focused, a steady stream o particles push them selves off of the target. Occasionally, the ions find a weak spot within the ship, and the magnetics rip the fault much wider, doing heavy damage. Unfortunetly, these areas upon a ship are most heavily gaurded, so the chances are ridiclously low. (Shots per minute x 75).

Any ion weapon has a trigger based critical strike, with additonal affects when nessecary.

What do you think?

Erm, until I see it in action I cant really say. Anyway..."Far too slow"?? Are you talking about plasma? That's one reason I took plasma weps out of direct attacks and into aoe (drop a plasma cloud behind you.) I changed the direct attack plasma to Ions, because Ion BEAMS are hella fast. And I still don't get this bit (Shots per minute x 75). What are you talking about here? I use cooldown timing and weapon damage - which needs actual testing not theoretical formulas.

 

[Lunarios]

Were thinking about different types of fast.

Your talking about attack speed, which I will agree is crazy fast. The things it fires can be massed produced easily, and go at the speed of light.

I'm talking about damage speed. A fast damage speed would be a catapult that destroys a castle with a single rock. A slow damage speed would be a catapult that knocks off a pebble every time it fires.

I agree with attack speed, but I think that the ion should rely on that lucky shot.

The Attack Speed x 75 is a ridiclous overstatemnt for the probability. A ion weapos's probability would be more like shots per 10 second, thus doing a biggie every 10 seconds, or roughly. This is what it would look like: 1/Shots per minute

 

[master maste]

I would be personally pissed off if someone came and killed me in one shot with an ion cannon because of its one hit kill/lucky shot status.

I think that the ion cannon should be a nice thick blue beam that takes off a fair amount of damage (not excessive amounts) that would also stun the unit and cause a decrease in sheilds and speed for a certain time (until the ship starts repairing itself. . .)

If you want I will start working on an ability for it.

In the current tests I am running at the moment I have completed 4 abilitys, and have 2 more almost done, and have 2 more ideas not yet formed into abilitys yet.

Edit: would have posted earlier but the internet would only let the house use wireless, and all the other comps have it except this 1 because it lost the software when I reinstalled windows, which btw still wont let me activate (as it thinks it cant see the connection. . . if you have any ideas PM me please.)