Reprisal v1.0.8

[daset]

OK, I see now that the playing styles make the problems. I will try to find a solution(to research levels for the grenade).

However, concerning City, I realize all of the problems there are.

First of all, the second objective was never meant to be completed as such a thing cannot be implemented(an objective that starts online but turns offline if a safearea is reached). The second obj was meant as an anti-cheat so people wouldn't just sit around and wait until ten minutes is up(forum held or not). Now that I realize it, this makes it so the rDGs will continue to pour out even after the objectives are done. Those were shitty objectives, looking back.

I guess the only thing to do is remove the second objective entirely and hold you by an honor system: I will immediately reset the level once the forum becomes overrun. Oh well.

Sorry for all the problems, 1.0.3 will be up soon.

EDIT: Safeareas are non team-selectable. This makes things a little trickier.

[daset]

OK, 1.0.3 is up. City should be fixed(honor system and all till I find a better way) and Cliffs should be easier. Also as well, there are more research points added on at several levels(radars included for grenades to get to v2).

[thefrogger]

FWIW, after resetting the objectives in game.txt, resetting the level and trying again, it did complete normally this time. I also played all the way through to the end. Pretty neat stuff--I'm impressed.

I discovered/realized a few more things about this mod in the process.

The Task Manager research is listed as "Grenades" in the research screen. (Grenades themselves are listed as Throwable, which sounds intentional).

You never have engineers, and thus never get any research points except for your initial cache. In my case, that was gone by the second level. It's possible/likely that playing more focused on the objective in Cliffs would have changed that though.

Rockets turn out to be fun when you're forced to use them. If they just wouldn't blow up in your face, they'd be a great weapon.

I had been extremely dependent upon 3.0-4.0 grenades, and as such, never used any other squad weapons. With the grenades restricted, but 4.0 rockets standard, they became the weapon of choice for the longer range attacks, and added the challenge of switching weapons. I still swore at the rockets on occasion, but I'm getting better at figuring out how to use them.

I got *much* better at killing SDs without losing squads. This was easier to do when there were some hills to work with, but even the one level that was very flat I could usually kill an SD or two before I had to get a new squad. I suspect I'll do even better next time.

[Major Cooke]

If you want some good tips on killing the SD's and stuff, scroll all the way down next to the squads and then use rockets for less frustrating effect, like with what I did with Armour and it turned out to be extremely user friendly. Thats how I breezed past these SD's in 2 seconds.

[daset]

Glad you liked it!

Anyway, I placed several invisible engineers that would reprogram hidden control towers for research only. At the beginning of radars, flight, and submerged, you get 44 research points(apiece) added to your pool. This could help grenade research, etc. I may put in more research caches in other levels if necessary.

About the Research names, it was just a little thing I wanted to show that the grenade research is actually the throwable range(since it affects grenade, controller, and airstrike). Then I just made Task Manager the Grenade to say you had it. Just a little touch I made.

[thefrogger]

Sounds like a great change for the research points. I missed having no upgrades throughout most of the game.

I took a quick look even though I should really get back to work. In Cliffs, did you change both the number of units, and the speed at which they move through the AI points? It seems like you may have gone further than you needed to, but that's probably also because I'm more familiar with how to complete the objective. The level is a neat design, and the one thing I might change is the path of the AI itself. Perhaps make each side more independent, so that cutting off one spawn point cuts one entire chain. Though you'd still have to eliminate the units in that chain to prevent them getting back to and reactivating the spawn point, at least the chain wouldn't be fed from another endless source.

That change would just be a bit more friendly to the people whose instincts try to "clear the level", while still allowing to bump the number of DGs back up a bit.

I also kind of objected to having my spawn position overrun. That may have been deliberate, so hopefully some other players will chime in as to how they feel about it. For me it was a combination of things. There are more important tasks at hand, which means I couldn't eliminate the source of the overrun. And then w/o the grenades, the area is harder to clear out when I need to.

It seems really close to brilliance. Something in between 1.0.2 and 1.0.3 in difficulty, with just a tweak or two perhaps in the pathing.

Now, Radars seems perfect. Lots and lots of fun!

More level comments after another play-through.

EDIT:
City -- I really love the intro cutscene for this one. Very cool. The level itself is a blast to play too. Very involved, and I get the feeling there are a number of strategies that can be developed.

At first, I found it odd that the only spawn points for your squads were essentially behind the enemy, but I see now that this is the point. It would be too easy otherwise, so Kudos for a great layout.

Flight -- This one reminds me of one of my all-time favorite levels -- Encampment from the mod Colour. The goal of having to escort someone and clear the way whilst also being pressured from the back is a truly excellent play dynamic. It does seem a bit too easy though in this one to herd the DGs out of the path of the reds and thus out of harm's way pretty early on, letting one clean up defenses at leisure. I parked everyone by the first radar dish, and then started cleaning house. The DGs weren't ever in danger the whole mission.

What it seems like this level needs, are chokepoints where you must get past the reds. There's essentially one at the very beginning, but it's pretty empty if you go through right away. From then on, you can send the DGs through the first radar dish once the coast is clear, and never have to encounter the reds at all. Indeed, there seems to be no reason why anyone would go the "long way around".

Suggestions:

Put one more centipede in the area in front of the first radar dish to slow the assault through that area. Probably a set of reds closer in too.

Narrow the area right before getting to the first dish. Currently, if the user's a little slow getting there, he can simply have the DGs wait off to the side.

Move the battle cannons to better guard the shortcut (and maybe a couple more). If the user chooses to go that way, it should be notably more challenging--setting up the decision between short and hectic, versus longer but more predictable. I think the longer path is probably already pretty good. (I haven't tried it, which is kind of the point).

Otherwise, if the shortcut isn't going to be a lot harder, perhaps you should get rid of it?

[Major Cooke]

Glad you liked it!

Anyway, I placed several invisible engineers that would reprogram hidden control towers for research only. At the beginning of radars, flight, and submerged, you get 44 research points(apiece) added to your pool. This could help grenade research, etc. I may put in more research caches in other levels if necessary.

About the Research names, it was just a little thing I wanted to show that the grenade research is actually the throwable range(since it affects grenade, controller, and airstrike). Then I just made Task Manager the Grenade to say you had it. Just a little touch I made.

Good planning! Especially on City, where you make a safearea for virii to spawn every 60 seconds. I should probably do that on one of my maps...

[daset]

Alright, then, 1.0.4 is up on StellarMatter.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[thefrogger]

Outbreak:
What controls the production of ant/engineers? I wound up with the last locus (by the turret) releasing no engineers at all, although I wasn't paying enough attention to notice how/when they vanished. I tried playing through again and it didn't happen the next time.

Cliffs:
What do you think about the changes? To me, it seems like it worked out really well, and that the level now plays solid in both the "go right for the objective" as well as the "eliminate the threats" play styles.

If you find it's still too easy, I believe you could actually ramp the difficulty back up even more without breaking anything. The AI changes make a big difference for the style I initially tried to play this level with (when I found it unsolvable).


This time through the mod, I tried not researching anything at the beginning so that I can obtain 3.0 grenades. It will be interesting how that changes things.

[daset]

The engineers/ants just act like the ants in the original(as far as I can tell). Sometimes, the loci/anthills are apparently unpopular and all the engineers/ants leave and join a different one.

About cliffs, yes, breaking up the two chains seemed the best. This was on difficulty 1, so yeah, I think it's pretty good.

Anything else that needed changing?

Thanks for the input!

[Artman40]

AAAARGH!

I have
1. Loaded a mod
2. Created a new profile
3. Restarted Darwinia
4. AND PROFILE IS AUTOMATICALLY SET TO 'NONE' AAARGH!!! '
Which makes the mod to make an automatic restart.

What am I doing wrong?

P.S. The mod crashes at the 5th level.

[thefrogger]

Sometimes, the loci/anthills are apparently unpopular and all the engineers/ants leave and join a different one.

Okay, I just hadn't noticed that behavior before.

The start of Flight looks much more interesting--Thanks! Unfortunately, it crashes with a Windows exception in about 30 seconds. I'm pretty sure that this is the "turret/AI bug" that only affects the Windows 1.42 version, and relates to moving >35 DGs to gun turrets. (It was being discussed in the Insurrection topic, and AFAIK, no one knows how to fix it yet or what other conditions cause the bug to not occur in some levels).

Since we have a 1.0.3 version that works, and a 1.0.4 version that crashes, I may play around with a few cut&paste tests between the two to see if I can narrow down the conditions.

EDIT:
Okay, I found that if I copy over just one line in map_flight.txt from the 1.0.3 version, I can prevent the crash. Line #71, the AITarget with ID #1 is what's crashing. Reverting that to the 1.0.3 version of:

Code: Select all

   AITarget            1       3694.81 1106.84 1       -0.53   0.85    0       


...fixes the problem. I played the level all the way through successfully this way. Not sure where that AI points to, but all the turrets seemed to be manned and reinforced.

Playwise, the start of the level was indeed more challenging, and more fun. It also looks like the short cut has been suitably reinforced. I probably could have gotten thru okay with 3.0 grenades, but without them I suspect it would be a world of hurt. In any case, I decided to try the long way this time, and it was not very good. The terrain is so wide, I just waltzed my group of DGs down one of the edges, and all the reds just pass by without a shot. There's one or two chokepoints that I needed to clear out to get through, but for the most part it was easy walking. At least one section of this route needs to be narrowed down to force the player through a stream of multiple reds. What you might want to consider, is putting one such section at the end of the level so that both paths need to experience it. Then put one more on the long path, so the user's choice becomes 'more turrets', or 'more red corridors'.

I'd probably also start the player off with fewer DGs. There's so many of them that even if they run into reds, virii, etc. they slice them up quite easily. I haven't tried, but I could probably run right through the reds w/o squad support the way it is now. (Spiders and turrets would still be lethal though).

[thefrogger]

What am I doing wrong?

The order should be:

1. Load a mod
2. Restart Darwinia
3. Create a new profile
4. There won't be a 4 this time

But in this case, you should read the readme.txt and follow the procedure at the end. Otherwise, you'll miss part of the intro sequence.

[Artman40]

Now it's OK, but the flight level still crashes after playing it about a minute? What am I doing now wrong?

[daset]

The windows bug. I should have that fixed in the next update(coming soon).