Adjusting Spam cubes?

[Foobie]

I've been playing with Spam cubes in my mod, but they seem to be all-powerful. Is there a way to adjust how often they fire, how many beams come out when they do, or which units the beams spawn? The only control mechanism that I know of is that I can deliberately trigger them through scripts (TriggerSpam); Spam doesn't have an entry in stats.txt since it's a building.

Alternatively, does anyone know the rules used to determine when the cube fires? Is it purely timer-based or does it take the proximity of player units into account? If I knew the rules, maybe I could design the level in a more friendly manner.

[martin]

I don't believe that there are any settings for the cube, and I think it's also purely timer based - so not really much help there
However spam cubes aren't necessarily that powerful - if you look at the MaintanenceSYS mod at the level GRID then you'll see 11 cubes all in one level!

[Foobie]

Thanks, I'll take a look at that.

Edit
Okay, I played with that level a bit and tried to figure out why it's not much more difficult than a level with just one cube. It seems to be the behaviour of the beams.

The beams will only do one of two things:
* kill your program
* resurrect a soul

When they resurrect a soul, it usually comes back as a virus. Sometimes it comes back as a spider, and it's the spiders that getcha because they lay eggs that can hatch into multiple viruses. So, if you wipe out a large area of viruses and there are souls sitting on the ground, a Spam cube can really mess you up if it brings back a couple of spiders to lay eggs. Then you get a rapid increase in the virus in the area. A Spam cube can be rendered nearly ineffective by placing a SpawnPointMaster in the level, since the souls will float away and all it can do it temrinate your programs.

[Shwart!!]

Good job. You're learning.
Another thing that makes them easy is using armours, either yours or your enemies. Set up a BC behind it, let Red DGs man it, and move another armour in front of it. The Spam Cube has a hard time killing the armour, while its own BC blasts the antisoul out of it.

Shwart!!

[xander]

Good job. You're learning. :P :D
Another thing that makes them easy is using armours, either yours or your enemies. Set up a BC behind it, let Red DGs man it, and move another armour in front of it. The Spam Cube has a hard time killing the armour, while its own BC blasts the antisoul out of it.

Shwart!!

Why did I never think to do that? I am going to have to make that trick part of some future mod...

xander

[Shwart!!]

Thats how to beat my Primary_Core. 5 cubes, 2 in easy range of squadies, other 2 surrounded by red DGs. Only the last one should be even a minor issue.

/me makes note: +1 chuckle of approval

Shwart!!

[martin]

A Spam cube can be rendered nearly ineffective by placing a SpawnPointMaster in the level, since the souls will float away and all it can do it temrinate your programs.

well I never thought of that! Imagine how much easier GRID would be with a master

[xander]

A Spam cube can be rendered nearly ineffective by placing a SpawnPointMaster in the level, since the souls will float away and all it can do it temrinate your programs.

well I never thought of that! Imagine how much easier GRID would be with a master :P

SpawnPointMasters completely kill the effectiveness of spam. Spam does nothing usefull if there is a SpawnPointMaster in the level. They can still kill units, but they can't spawn more units.

xander

[martin]

A Spam cube can be rendered nearly ineffective by placing a SpawnPointMaster in the level, since the souls will float away and all it can do it temrinate your programs.

well I never thought of that! Imagine how much easier GRID would be with a master

SpawnPointMasters completely kill the effectiveness of spam. Spam does nothing usefull if there is a SpawnPointMaster in the level. They can still kill units, but they can't spawn more units.

xander

I realise that now, but some "tame" spam could be good.

[The GoldFish]

There were originally going to be spam cubes around the outside of Stricken's Valhalla to make the place all that scarier, but the doom beams didn't pay attention to what team the cube was on so they'd just hunt you down and jib you, so they got cut.

[Foobie]

Another thing that makes them easy is using armours, either yours or your enemies. Set up a BC behind it, let Red DGs man it, and move another armour in front of it. The Spam Cube has a hard time killing the armour, while its own BC blasts the antisoul out of it.

I do have a level coming up that could potentially have red Armours and a Spam cube, I'll have to bear that in mind. Good tip!

[brice]

Good job. You're learning.
Another thing that makes them easy is using armours, either yours or your enemies. Set up a BC behind it, let Red DGs man it, and move another armour in front of it. The Spam Cube has a hard time killing the armour, while its own BC blasts the antisoul out of it.
Shwart!!

Why did I never think to do that? I am going to have to make that trick part of some future mod...
xander

The same trick works for SDs too. I was playing one of the EW levels back before I knew how to kill SDs with rockets. The level has lots of enemy cannons at sea level and a bunch of SDs up on a plateau protecting a control tower. In frustration I tried sending waves of engineers to the tower (from offshore), and to my surprise the cannons firing at the engineers took out the attacking SD. After experimenting with approach angles and groups of engineers I was able to get the enemy armour to take out all three SDs for me. It worked even better when I sent empty armours to lure the SDs into "friendly" fire.