new faction

[KaiserJ]

cons will be stationary towers, morphable into movable, possibly flying units (that cannot build in "move mode")

these towers may or may not be radar inclusive

for combat repair, there will be a function-specific mobile unit, possibly with an attacking weapon as well as the healing/repair ability

all other aspects of construction and economy will remain the same as faction 1

thoughts? ideas?

going ahead with this pretty soon, most units for faction 2 are complete.

spoiler : units may or may not be named after alpha testers

[Pxtl]

Sounds neat. Good to hear you're breaking out of the TA mold some more. I do worry about queuing + move/deploy.

Since you're doing static but deployable constructors, you could try an approach that has often been talked about: a team with a bunch of static units that can be relocated through the use of air-transports. Move turrets forwards by picking them up and putting them at the new spot. Of course, you'd probably need widgets for making this micro well.

Obviously, I'm just spitballing here.

[MidKnight]

[knorke]

the basic unit is a small drone thing that replicates itself and you can merge the drones to form bigger things. (like a attack unit gets made by merging 5 drones)

[Neddie]

I'm your tester!

[AF]

hmmm I will test with Shard at the weekend now AI<-> gadget comms works, link me to the necessary media

[Google_Frog]

Since you're doing static but deployable constructors, you could try an approach that has often been talked about: a team with a bunch of static units that can be relocated through the use of air-transports. Move turrets forwards by picking them up and putting them at the new spot. Of course, you'd probably need widgets for making this micro well.

Forb already tried that a while ago. He didn't like it.

The only mobile unit (worth building) was an unarmed unit that could be used to teleport immobile units. The teleportation speed was dependant on how many teleporters were at each end and units could be 'reclaimed' into a Kernel Panic like buffer. Unit composition could even be switched around by using the generic buffer to make a different unit type appear at the end of teleportation.

But as I said forb didn't like that. He subsequently nerfed these immobile units and made them require power grid coverage to teleport. Then he removed the teleportation all together so the immobile units are completely immobile. The original teleporter unit has been relegated to a pure economy construction role. This lead to the gameplay of Evo today which revolves around mobile units build from factories.

[Forboding Angel]

Convo me and kai had on the subject several hours ago. Hopefully you don't mind me posting this, but it's pretty relevant. In other news, I finished up the new area heal ability on the ORB. It is always active. Heals your units and ally units for 10 hp every second, it also stacks (This ability does not affect buildings). A unit must be out of combat for 5 seconds before it will begin to be healed. ORBs now properly patrol and repair (repair as in the normal method). I also raised the ORB's repair mojo to double that of a normal engineer. All mobile units will probably be denied normal repair (to prevent double duty), but as of 740 that is not the case just yet. Also, atm, area repair is free, when I get it sorted how to subtract from the right team, repair cost will prolly be 5 energy per 10 hitpoints repaired (is this a fair amount???).

Anyway, onward and upward.

[22:49:38] <Fury_of_the_Storm> this nano-tower-morphy machine
[22:49:42] <Fury_of_the_Storm> it should be a plane, right?
[22:52:01] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> Hmm
[22:52:06] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> well here is a thought
[22:52:09] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> well ok first of all
[22:52:12] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> prolly not
[22:52:23] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> reasoin being, people will abuse the living shit out of it
[22:52:47] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> like flying to your base at the start of the game and doing stupid stuff
[22:52:55] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> or proxying etc etc
[22:53:32] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> The only reason we don't ahve this now is that to get a plane con out it would put you so fat behind in the early game that you'd get assraped
[22:53:51] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> also
[22:54:00] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> well I don't entire understand the mechanic
[22:54:13] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> for things like mexes, how will those get built and stuff
[22:54:57] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> Now, if we could find some way to mitigate the potential chesse of it all, then plae away as far as I'm concerned
[22:55:18] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> but I'm not sure how I'd explain away a ridiculously slow moving plane :-/
[22:56:18] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> hell, remember when I tried Air commanders? Yeah, even tho they moved omgshitlow, just the fact that they were air allowed for them to be abused to a ridiculous degree
[22:56:46] <Fury_of_the_Storm> yeah, for the record, i certainly wasnt thinking a fast plane
[22:57:15] <Fury_of_the_Storm> mechanicwise
[22:57:44] <Fury_of_the_Storm> i figured... let the plane land, then it turns into a "nota tower"... able to create buildings within a radius
[22:57:55] <Fury_of_the_Storm> easy to destroy in both forms
[22:58:22] <Fury_of_the_Storm> not sure if i care much about it being able to take off... but that morph (tower->plane) would have to be costly
[22:59:13] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> ehh?
[22:59:47] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> Costly to morph?
[23:00:07] <Fury_of_the_Storm> not to make the plane into the tower. but to make the tower into the plane
[23:00:21] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> so what would build the tower?
[23:00:26] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> other towers?
[23:00:32] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> daisy chain effect?
[23:00:37] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> now that would be interesting
[23:01:02] <Fury_of_the_Storm> tbh i was thinking commander / all labs could make the towerplane, but thats almost more interesting
[23:01:26] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> well here is the deal
[23:01:37] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> if you're only going to have the main construction unit as a tower
[23:01:46] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> it doesn't make much sense to have a mobile con
[23:01:56] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> (other than the fact that it could go airborne
[23:02:20] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> Cause then you would jsut use the mobile con to verything
[23:02:24] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> for*
[23:12:09] <Fury_of_the_Storm> kk
[23:12:22] <Fury_of_the_Storm> what do you think would be best in the scenario
[23:13:25] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> omg
[23:13:33] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> I think I jsut dropped 10 pounds
[23:13:38] <Fury_of_the_Storm> LOL
[23:13:40] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> I'm never eating mexican again
[23:13:42] <Fury_of_the_Storm> mmm healthy
[23:13:54] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> sorry I had more to say but damn near shit myself agian
[23:14:04] <Fury_of_the_Storm> <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> it doesn't make much sense to have a mobile con <- we could make plane to tower a one-way morph
[23:14:05] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> ok so to make towers work
[23:14:18] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> actually, I got one better
[23:14:26] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> we rip off 2 games
[23:14:29] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> sc2 and gundam
[23:14:42] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> sc2 terrain buildings can lift off and relocate
[23:14:50] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> but they are very slow to do so (as in moving
[23:15:21] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> if we make the towers for building more squat and biggish then have them sprout rocket boosters upon morph
[23:15:30] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> all of a sudden the slowish movement makes sense
[23:15:32] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> next
[23:15:41] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> to mitigate towers being worse than cons
[23:15:57] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> we implement the towers being able to simultaneously build shit
[23:16:04] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> a la gundam conyards
[23:16:29] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> this means that a person playing faction2 can get infrastructure up much faster than faction1
[23:16:56] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> the flipside is that it's hard to expand and mobilize in general
[23:17:01] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> instituting phase 2
[23:17:15] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> daisy chaining of towers (a subtower unit maybe?)
[23:17:36] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> this would allow faction1 player, while they expand slower, infrastructure is everywhere
[23:18:21] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> Combine this with defenses and perhaps some teching mechanisms besides power, and we have an extremely unique race
[23:19:00] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> Also for build ranges, I was thinki9ng about 1000 range (200 more than the faction1 comm)
[23:19:18] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> this would allow faction2 people to not be horribly gimped on large maps
[23:19:48] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> towers would also have the advantage of having important expansion points heavily defended quite quickly
[23:19:58] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> with defenses and the like
[23:21:31] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> oh god. my stomach
[23:21:51] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> anyway, so whaddya think?
[23:22:04] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> Also
[23:22:24] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> we could make faction2 a more turtloe type of approach, similar to terran in sc2
[23:22:32] <Fury_of_the_Storm> well, sounds pretty good to me
[23:22:33] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> turtly*
[23:22:44] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> turtlely?
[23:22:45] <Fury_of_the_Storm> (sorry, was working on a model, and watching "a bridge too far")
[23:22:50] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> gotcha
[23:23:05] <Fury_of_the_Storm> but yeah, i like the idea
[23:23:06] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> don't much me, just trying to recover from the helltacos
[23:23:12] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> much = mind
[23:23:29] <Fury_of_the_Storm> lol
[23:23:37] <Fury_of_the_Storm> so... would these towers... be cheap? or expensive
[23:24:19] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> well that's the rub
[23:24:34] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> I'm thinking moderately expensive but very sturdy
[23:24:46] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> also morph into flying would be cheap and instant
[23:24:49] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> cheap as in 0
[23:25:08] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> because if you've seen buildings fly off in sc2, then you know what I'm talking about
[23:25:42] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> I don't like penalizing the player for something that should jsut be a part of the gameplay
[23:25:49] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> the way I envision it
[23:26:07] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> the faction2 guy will be on the backfoot for a good part of the early game
[23:26:20] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> so in terms of faction1 econ
[23:26:32] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> prolly about 100 metal per, maybe less ish
[23:26:44] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> enough to the point that losing one would not be a good thing
[23:26:48] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> however
[23:26:56] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> that's why I meantion subtowers
[23:27:09] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> basically, cheaper and crappier versions of the real things
[23:27:22] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> that cannot lift off and prolly have smaller buildrange
[23:27:32] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> those would be significantly cheaper
[23:27:55] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> Perhaps only the ability to build one thing at a time with them
[23:28:19] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> Dunno if you've seen gundam conyards, but basically it's a building where you que up shit and it all builds at the same time
[23:28:32] <Fury_of_the_Storm> well
[23:28:39] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> so economically, the faction2 player could get an early game spike
[23:28:44] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> (3 mexes at once)
[23:28:45] <Fury_of_the_Storm> yeah, ok, i can see that
[23:28:51] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> but would be hampered by mobility
[23:29:04] <Fury_of_the_Storm> i was thinking it would be cool to make a "servitor" sort of guy, a build assister/combat medic similar to the orb
[23:29:16] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> speaking of that
[23:29:27] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> the orb is prolly on the verge of losing it's stick
[23:29:34] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> in favor of an innate ability
[23:29:43] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> that will heal every x seconds via lua
[23:29:48] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> in a radius
[23:29:51] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> your and ally units
[23:30:24] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> witht he tower system (as I propose it), why on earth would you need assist?
[23:30:42] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> moreover, even assisting in faction1 is undeniably silly
[23:31:03] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> considering that it totally fucks up your econ balance
[23:31:43] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> oops
[23:31:47] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> didn't address all of that
[23:31:58] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> Yes, field medic is a definite yes and must have
[23:32:08] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> however I wanna do it different than the orb
[23:32:38] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> well
[23:32:48] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> I say that but I don't ahve anything concrete in mind
[23:33:07] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> oh fuckign hell, I know!
[23:33:14] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> THe Big towers!
[23:33:26] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> Give them a perodic heal ability
[23:33:39] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> so moving your shit back home or in range of one of them heals your untis up
[23:38:22] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> abd by home, I mean anywhere where there is a main tower
[23:38:42] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> perhaps even have the ability activated while in flying mode
[23:39:08] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> so you can use them as a field medic as well as jsut expansion stuffs
[23:39:25] <[Evo]Forboding_Angel> just doing this stuff would change the dynamics of the race completely

[Google_Frog]

Daisy chain can work. I liked to daisy chain in The Cursed before Mages became the best unit ever.

[AF]

Make medics autoheal but not an area effect, make them good at healing but only one unit at a time. That should give faction 1 a nice perk that is also a disadvantage in that 1 faction 2 medic is better than a tonne fo orbs, but only on one unit

[Forboding Angel]

@Af, noes. They will be different regardless, don't worry about that, I already have some plans in place how there will be some major divergence.

Well I dunno if it was clear so let me nutshell the whole premise:

Game starts with big tower thingy, this is essentially your commander. It can lift off and relocate, also, more of them can be built. Big tower builds everything you queue up simultaneously instead of one at a time.

Smaller subtowers can be built and daisy chained across the map. Smaller towers cannot lift off and can only build one thing at a time.

Additionally, big tower has a healing radius around it so that if your units are damaged, you can move them in range and they will be healed. This goes for both flying mode and landed mode (maybe it should jsut be landed, dunno haven't gotten that far just yet).

The idea being that while faction1 can expand rapidly, faction2 can build much better infrastructure, much more quickly. Moreover, big towers could be used to secure important map positions or chokepoints and with multi-build capability could put up defenses and things of that nature nearly instantly (assuming the resources were available).

The race as a whole will probably be geared more towards turtling and not as much towards just out and out carnage (a la, faction1). Of course balancing the two will be entertaining, but it can be done, I have no doubt

[Pxtl]

Sounds interesting. Got any ideas for lua widget to make daisy-chaining micro less painful?

I worry about this turning into "on map X everybody takes faction 1. On map Y, everybody takes faction 2" problem.

[Wombat]

maybe abuse CA connecting mex with E feature somehow ?

[Forboding Angel]

maybe abuse CA connecting mex with E feature somehow ?

Yeah, no.

Sounds interesting. Got any ideas for lua widget to make daisy-chaining micro less painful?

Well if I've I've done the math right, daisy chaining don't be a particularly slow process. The issue is vulnerability really, but even then It's like having an engineer on every section of the route.

I worry about this turning into "on map X everybody takes faction 1. On map Y, everybody takes faction 2" problem.

A little credit please?

[MrCucumber]

The idea on being able to make defenses without power generators sounds cool. Will the towers fly fast when in the air? They seem like they will have a really hard time expanding. Also idea for the unit repair thing, instead of the flying towers to repair, what about all units can repair, just not themselves and they do it slowly? Field medics sound cool, but units that heal each other are cooler xD

[Forboding Angel]

Defenses will still require power, not sure where the idea that they wouldn't came from.

It's worth noting... again..

You have 2 main structures. Big building that has all the abilities, and a secondary little tower (think a nanoturret in a way, except assisting construction in evo is really dumb unless you're horribly excessing or something, even then it's not real bright). The secondary little tower can build copies of itself. The speed you expand would be entirely up to you to be honest.

You would also be able to make copies of the main building as well, and the main building would be able to fly around, blah blah blah. And, not fast.

Units healing each other sounds cool until your cpu begs for mercy from the luagods.

Edit: I'm going to stop calling it a tower because a tower lifting off and relocation sounds utterly ridiculous.

[MrCucumber]

Defenses will still require power, not sure where the idea that they wouldn't came from.

I kinda misread something and got that idea.

[AF]

Have you investigated the option of a mobile unit that can beam or extend energy from nearby power plants? Say having innefficiency as the downside?

Would be useful setting up forward bases fast that are about to be rushed, or similar uses to the protoss phase prisms phasing mode

[Pxtl]

@FA - I didn't mean to insult your balancing ability, I'm just saying that one porcy faction and one fast-expanding faction will be hard to keep equivalently powerful on every map. Just think about DSD (not much expansion metal, small easily-dependable bases) vs. CCR (lots of metal spread evenly over an undefendable map)

[Google_Frog]

Sounds interesting. Got any ideas for lua widget to make daisy-chaining micro less painful?

Well if I've I've done the math right, daisy chaining don't be a particularly slow process. The issue is vulnerability really, but even then It's like having an engineer on every section of the route.

Wtf Forb that didn't answer the question at all!