Bridge, bridge controller… I had no idea there was anything like this on the map. I just watched BurnD’s replay above to find it and think I know what’s being referred to. Do you destroy that little doodad and it’s meant to create the bridge?
Yes, that is a unit though. It’s cloaked, so you need detection, and it is not an enemy, so you need to use attack command (it can be unintentionally killed by some AOE or passive attackers like symbiote if I make it enemy). It’s difficult to explain this in game without voice lines.
Idea was that the bridge is a risk on your expansion (some waves will start to go through it) that gives you a shortcut to the last bay. I can make it so the bridge will activate, when player units get close, and deactivate, when they get away. Or just activate it by some timer or other event.
EDIT: for now, I’ll make it bigger in next update.
Ahh ok. So you have to attack command it. That’s what I wasn’t doing.
Is it possible to make a tip like on cradle of death where it says “select this truck” but instead says attack command to open bridge?
What happens when a conduit is resealed? Does the launch counter pause, or reset?
I really enjoy the map, but it feels like Virophages respawn a bit too quickly.
It feels like the only efficient way to deal with them aside a very fast army is to leave some defenses or a handful of units stationed at each conduit, which feels tedious for commanders without a good anti-ground turret like H&H.
And maybe this is just faulty memory, but it seemed like a ton of Hybrid spawned awfully close to the main objective at some point - we lost because we didn’t get our stuff in position in time.
With that said there’s something refreshingly challenging in managing things going on all around the map. It feels like you sort of almost need an ally to cover everything while pushing.
In an official version of this, it’d be nice to see a countdown to the mega-Hybrid wave spawn. Maybe a Hybrid wave would spawn every ??? or so, and they’d get stronger each time to help add that sense of urgency.
I feel like the Bridge control shouldn’t be cloaked, since it makes the mechanic less intuitive and easier to overlook. That and having to get a Detector just to interact with it is a bit annoying.
I’d love to see Blizzard adopt this, and I think I’ll be playing often. Great work!
I’m making area of enemy base near the conduit wider. Since protoss and terrans need to build a lot more production buildings, it’s getting cramped. I also think of moving hybrid spawn point a little farther from conduit.
Good idea, I will look into it.
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MISSION UPDATE:
- Added Protoss AI enemies. Enemy selection is random for now.
- Made map a bit bigger to give some more space for enemy base near the conduit.
- Bridge key is now bigger and have tips (text tags) in both cloaked and visible states.
- Hybrid waves spawn a little further into enemy base. Last hybrid wave spawns a little later (timings depends on evacuation completion %).
Played as Abathur:
- 30 mutalisks, 2 roaches and 2 queens (only half had 100 biomass at first) stationed around bonus conduit can hold hybrids indefinitely.
- Around 15 swarm hosts with few vipers and Evos near the main base entrance can hold spawned attack waves.
- It takes around an hour to finish a mission with only 3 bays cleared.
- I got few biomass blobs, with 6k+ biomass in each, near the conduit at the end of the game.
Looks like I need to do something to prevent such spawn camping of bonus spawns. Also biomass, dropped in the center of bonus conduit becomes inaccessible.
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Checked out the mission finally, and I gotta say - good job! I really liked the variety, though I wasn’t playing particularly well. On my first try (only played twice) I didn’t really understand what’s the deal, but Galgus carried me through it. Good on him, by the by.
My only gripe is that the starting location was pretty small for a Swann and an H&H.
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I’ll second this, it’s somewhat awkward to build the ten Strike Fighter platforms.
I didn’t play very well, but the Virophage things seem kind of cheesable with Strike Fighters, though the late expansion means it takes awhile to get them all up and running if the ally isn’t carrying the defense.
I can try to make it bigger (I used RTC 2017 guide for reference: main base should have at least 10 8x8 squares of free space), and one of the expansions are too far I think, and too vulnerable. I’m thinking to remove attack waypoit from there. Also I think I overdid with protoss preplaced units. It’s tougher than with zerg, and there is too much biomass for Abathur.
I haven’t played it with Protoss enemies yet.
How do we set that up, or is it just random?
It is random, it can be done with uploading same map with different choices (like Maguro’s Maps). I will look into Maguro’s coop mod, and (if I will be able to make it work) upload 3 races versions with his mod as dependency
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Just played against protoss enemies. Was very nice but way tougher. FYI The first 2 hybrid spawns bugged out and never came at the main conduit. I left the game prior to seeing if more would bug out or not (first game of the day and was playing poorly lol).
Bridge control / tip were great. Well done.
MISSION UPDATE
- Added Terran AI. All AI are now playable, AI is selected at random.
- Made players’ main base area a bit bigger.
- Bonus now starts a bit earlier.
- Made a path of “no build” terrain, from the spawn point to the warp conduit. I think it was because of AI placed buildings blocked the path and ground hybrids couldn’t path to the warp conduit.
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Two things I noticed, one is that the supply limit and resources show up twice (top right corner). For a few minutes I thought it’s my ally’s but nope.
Second, I noticed my second Nexus started with Chrono Boost on it (Karax), so good touch, brother.
Yes, this map has my “chrono bug fix” change included, but other suggested changes are not.
It showed resources of 2nd player (left one), so your ally could see your resources/supply while you see your own twice. It is a feature for solo play. Anyway, fixed that, it will not show if you play with another player.
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Coolio, thanks, brother. Will try the mod again if anybody comes online from my friends list.
A small update:
- Fixed a bug, where players could have same color.
- Fixed a bug, where protoss AI variant could start with first bay active.
- Added commands to change player difficulty level while in commander select screen.
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Okay wow. Yeah, no. Attempting to play solo without playing Dehaka or Abathur is just suicide. Legitimate suicide. By the time you have your defenses in place and even an okay army size, you’re halfway to the 24 minute deathball wave, and there is no surviving that. Even with the -solo2 command. Holy hell, what were you thinking?
Even while playing Abathur, these deathball and Thrasher timings are too impossible to deal with. I can’t support this map anymore.
That sounds like almost perfect design to me. Mode is supposed to be co-op after all.
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What BartFitz say is true too, but you may be playing this map in a wrong way. Since its new, you don’t have enough experience to remember attack wave timings. So, here a small tip about internal mechanics: each bay has 10 “high capacity” shuttles, they launch with minimal delay and give 2% of progress each. After that a bay start to launch shuttles with big delays between them and such shuttles give only 0.25% of progress. This is how I solo this: get some army, release bays near main base and on expansion, leave a some forces near the bay on expansion, make some def for conduit and continue increasing an army. After 40% of progress forget about expansion bay and free another bay (near the bonus or bottom right one), after 60% forget it and free another one, get ready to defend from the hybrids, open the bridge to be able to get an easier route to the last bay and to make a path between last thrashers. Last hybrids come at 94%, if you holding last bay and have some def you should be able to finish before they kill warp conduit.
But, of course, when I play with an ally I can do this a lot easier. Clear enemy base near the conduit and spawncamp hybrids, then go for the bays.
Also, a small update:
- Since Virophage has life regen, I readjusted shields regen for Obelisk, and added Fire Suppression System to Psi Disrupter (restores to 100% HP, but slower than original).
- Removed Psi Disrupter debuff behavior (really forgot about this thing). Or maybe I should add some debuff behaviors to Virophage and Obelisk?
- After some more testing with a human ally, I decided to change monoliths from “attack range 11, sight range 5” to “attack range 5, sight range 11”. My ally just placed CC with a few SCVs and didn’t bothered with defending warp conduit at all.
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