Spring RTS Engine

had a few games of KP yesterday and it was rather frustrating. we noticed some maps just are not very playable.
For example the paths on"Dual Core" map are way too narrow, units try to cut corners and get stuck.
At least the start spot should always be very open without narrow paths. Its no fun guiding ie a constructor around such maps.

Also on this map my first constructor got stuck on the cliff and could not get away:


Good maps were:
The yellow 4x4 map (Marble Madness?) for 1v1
16xSpeedball for up 1v1v1

The games on other maps sucked a bit tbh.
Also it seems nobody can really play Hacker or Network but playing System all the time is a bit boring.

Don't blame KP, blame the Engine pathing.

some is probally engine pathing but some is just the maps having too narrow pathways were 2 units can not get past each other.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of those busy maps

You're right, some of these maps have way too narrow corridors. The worst is quad core.

I hope FireStorm will make more maps, but with less datavents and wider pathways. I think it's a common beginner's mistake, personnaly I had to make Spooler Buffer to learn that the passages must always be at least twice as big as you'd think.

knorke wrote:Good maps were:

Not Data Cache?

of the maps we played yesterday.
yes data cache is ok too, though i dont like the startpositions on this high hills.

Last time I played Quad Core it were allright(might have been before the new bugged pathfinding).

What's wrong with narrow corridors? It makes you have to consider going through that path at the right time and regroup on the other side if there are opposition.

Also:
Bugs>bits
Worms>bytes
Spam>pointers
Flow>spam and worms
Pointers+fire ability>Spam+map with only a few narrow passages

I can come and show you how to play Hacker against System if you remind me. Bugs can be microed so well against system. Although I fear facing Flow as Hacker since its hard to both paralyze and kill them when there are packets around.
Flows+Packets>Hacker
Is it still like that or has it changed since the last changes to badTargetCategories of DoS?

DoS + exploit tends to be able to hit flows at longer ranges in my experience. Since bugs hit significantly harder than bits do and their inability to shoot through friendlies isn't important with flying targets the flows can't just rush past your bugspam to get to the exploits.

KDR_11k wrote:DoS + exploit tends to be able to hit flows at longer ranges in my experience. Since bugs hit significantly harder than bits do and their inability to shoot through friendlies isn't important with flying targets the flows can't just rush past your bugspam to get to the exploits.

I'm more worried about Flows skirmishing around the edges of my bugswarm than them actually trying to go through my bugswarm. DoS usually deters Flows from skirmishing against my bugswarms but once packets join the fight I can't reach the paralyzsed Flows unless I wan't to go into a wall of packets and flows which my weak bugs don't stand a chance unless I already have more than my enemy.
From my experience Exploits rarely hit flows at long range and at close range they deal less damage. Deploying and undeploying them takes several seconds so unless I can hold my position it is too risky to deploy Exploits. For every 4 exploits I deploy my enemy can have 4 packets or 1 Flow and exploits doesn't last long once the enemy is in range. My DoS can only stun a few Flows or Packets before the enemy reaches my position so I don't see how Exploits are gonna make me win an even fight against Flows and packets. This is troublesome even at Marble Madness before any Expansions have been taken.

BTW, in equal numbers bugs are inferior to bits but if you convert half the bugs to exploits the bits lose (only applies to larger troop sizes). Bugs cannot shoot through friendlies so their rear ranks are useless in the battle, turning them into exploits allows them to contribute as well.

KDR_11k wrote:BTW, in equal numbers bugs are inferior to bits but if you convert half the bugs to exploits the bits lose (only applies to larger troop sizes). Bugs cannot shoot through friendlies so their rear ranks are useless in the battle, turning them into exploits allows them to contribute as well.

That doesn't help me against Flows
I consider bugs superior to bits with the correct micro even in larger numbers. Bugs can outmanouver bits and if you run them sideways away from the enemy you can keep them out of range and make the bits in the back not get in range before the first line has died neglecting the advantage of the bits' ability to shoot through eachother.
When I face System I can usually just spam bugs with the odd DoS or Worm to add an extra punch against Bytes and Pointers.

knorke wrote: Good maps were:
The yellow 4x4 map (Marble Madness?) for 1v1
16xSpeedball for up 1v1v1

Nice to hear my maps are being played
Have you tried Speed_Balls_18_Way ? It looks like a good candidate as well. Looks playable for 3 or 6 way ffa. And the paths are at least 2x wider.

Didn't look at this tread after Jazcash responded to knorke.
I thought most relevant stuff was already said by them.

I did run lots and lots of AI battles, in order to discover and pinpoint bottlenecks, and polish some of them away. Back then even units seldom got stuck in Quadcore and the biggest critique after release was it being heavily unbalanced.

My defence was that KP wouldn't be worse off with at least one unbalanced map in the line up. I wouldn't see it as a problem if people (accidently) have fun on such a map.

I do however see it as somewhat a problem if people don't have fun at all because the first big unit being build gets stuck. But what to do except for dreaming of days with better pathing?
(Perhaps i should have been a physicist. As far as i know the fundamental laws governing their world rarely get changed )

I guess i have to think of some new maps to earn my keep within the kp community . I recently was thinking about making a new one (although i had that initiative before without real result). Hopefully some concept sketches soon...

wip:

large image

So the heightmap is some sort of staired pyramids, with the center one inverted? What do you mean by "feature model"? I have some trouble visualising it.

Anyway, always nice to see new pretty KP maps.

Yes and yes.
I haven't visualised the feature model myself yet , but for now I see no reason kp can't have some sort equivalents for trees and rocks to improve a map.

Had an idea, and now i hope for some feed back (before I possibly start on realising it.) All comments are welcome; gameplay implications, appearance, ways to implement, etc...
(to be clear: its not supposed to be in the concept i posted above.)

Diode


AND gate

:D :D
so perfect! :D
more of that cool spirit that one feels when seeing KP for the first time.

Epic ideas. Make some kind of a user pack of gates so players can make their own circuit maps :D

My current project (that I'm about 0.1% of the way into) is to make some map-oriented gameplay elements for KP. I expect to get bored and give up on a week.

1) Basic creeps and creep factories. That's what I'm working on now.

2) The Interrupt, a simple long-ranged turret with a long reload time that discourages rushing. Once you mass some units they can be ignored, but they'll discourage rushers from sending out their first 2-3 units on offense on maps that use these things.

3) The Token Ring - a teleporter that moves around the map in a pre-planned pattern. So you move a bunch of units to the current Token Ring zone, wait for the "jump" and they all move to the next Zone.

4) FlipFlops. Basically, static unit turret that joins your side when it is destroyed. Interesting things would happen when you put FlipFlops in firing range of each other.

5) Root. A massive Krogoth-like monster. Killing a Root makes you win.

The idea is that a map can define locations for these to spawn, and to add profiles of this stuff to the mapoptions.