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Can't wait to playtest this crap man, giddyup!

You must live in the same general area as me, I've been getting some nasty surges recently too.

When are we testing again?

I hope there arent any more power outages . More of these can really hurt the faster production of maps.

Sup guys. Got a bit of news:


Progress Report: Ok, thanks to both my recent power outage and my latest project epiphany, I've decided I'm not letting this map get finished unless I can get it done right. That means, yep, overhaul time. Again.

Overhaul again you say? To the tune of the following:

• Mech menu and launch menu both consolidated into a single overlord menu.
• Mech statistics displayed when you order move your menu overlord (handy way to quickly see what you got).
• Hangar purchases display quantity of what you purchased.
• Mech armor now has 3 layers: Heavy Hull, Light Hull (standard), and Shields.
• The layers each have their own properties:
  • Heavy hull provides meaty cover against all attacks, but slows mech speed and is most affected by splash (so buying tons of splash weapons will break down all heavy armor at once no matter how many you buy).
  • Light hull can only be killed 1 at a time, albeit quickly. No mech speed loss though.
  • Shields deflect all weak attacks, but is fairly vulnerable against stronger attacks and emp.
  • Shields can be toggled on and off, adding a new strategic element to the gameplay.
• Mech cockpit upgrades added. Upgrades improve starting HP and extend overheat meter.
• Overheat meter added:
  • Offense mode, intercept mode, and assault mode all draw from overheat meter.
  • Mech reverts to Mobile mode when meter drained.
  • Meter recharges while in mobile mode.
  • Recharge speed affected by total # of mech parts. Cockpit upgrades increase this speed, though.
  • Shield toggling subtracts from overheat meter. Keeping shields on won't continually draw from it, though.
• Players can also place their own quick access hangar points (as flag beacons) within first few minutes of gameplay. This will be restricted to the relative area of the player's base, however (player's can't exit base perimeters for first several minutes of gameplay anyway).
• Scientists will be added. Purchase options with them include:
  • Upgrade base defenses
  • Unlock missions
  • Create special long-range aimable base cannon (player-controllable Ion Cannon)
  • Upgrade spawners
  • Unlock purchases
• Items (might) be added. Selectable by unloading from bunker (after being purchased). These include (and I maybe I should use better names ):
  • Mech Repair - Restores mech HP and lost parts
  • Jolt - Quickly recharges overheat meter.
  • Rapid Mech - Removes 2500 from your deployment countdown timer.
  • Rapid Hangar - Allows player to quickly enter hangar. When used again while in hangar, it moves player to last position they left in (unless they exit the hangar normally).
  • Shields Up - Fixes shields at constant 10% for 30 seconds. Only attacks stronger than 10% can affect them. Closest thing to temporary invincibility there can be. Needs to be used carefully, though.

Translation: I got my work cut out for me now. I may not finish this by year's end.

Fortunately, all is not lost. I will be doing an intermediate stage first, which will be sorta a checkpoint for the project. This will not include gameplay progression, items, scientists, or the overheat system. I might be able to finish this by year's end.

Once this is done, we'll begin a new round of balance/bug testing. We're gonna be upping the ante this time, though, so be prepared to do some serious testing. I'm working on this right now, so I'll likely have some new progress to report over the next few days. Stay tuned.

My my add option slots to the cockpits, advanced targeting systems, and generator parts to add to cooldown and overheat, and you would have a full function Game, not just a SC map. ;O

The only thing I see you having any issues with is them missions. Nobody likes doing them, or cutscenes (at least to my knowledge).

Option slots to the cockpits? Targetting system? Don't quite understand...

I've decided against generator parts, though. Or at least, I've simplified it into cockpit upgrades.


The missions come last... if at all. I'm questioning whether the gameplay isn't messy enough without additional parts added in.

That'd definitely be a v2 release feature. Possibly scientists too.

Maybe I'll call it an "expansion pack".

Option slots would be the simple thing of how many weapons/armor/stuff your mech can hold. Forinstance, say the first cockpit has 20 option slots. Then you could make the bc use 4 option slots, basic armor use 1, stronger armor use 2, etc. Any other parts would also use option slots and soon you'd max out our mechs slots. (Also a good way to prevent CCMU and hording valks XD)

And the advanced targeting would be faster reation time for your guns and stuff to start shooting enemies, and would make them do most of your work for you (Idk how you could do that in a SC map, but I bet someone could!)

All ideas that you can quietly disregard, but in case you need just one more thing.

Actually the option slots I was kinda hoping would be limited by money in the first place. But adding it as a function of cockpits might make it more strategic. Especially with cockpit upgrades.

Frankly though, I'm in for a balancing nightmare as is. If had to add one more thing I think I'd scream.



Oh, and:

Mini-Progress Report: Just added the new overlord selection system. Works pretty well. Now I gotta add cockpit "pointer" thing, take care of some more tweaks/fixes, and i"ll be ready for the next test.

I've decided I'm going to do two releases for this map, for the sake of my sanity. The first will have the gameplay progression and the features you see already. The next will have the scientists, items, missions, team purchases, overheat system, cockpit upgrades, and other goodies. I'll call it an expansion pack.

That way, I can balance the core stuff publicly for awhile, and at least have a mostly finished map out if worse comes to worst.

ADDITION:



Ok guys, just want you to know I think because of this downtime I'm going to begin migrating this topic to maplantis. I know some of you might not like that, but given the current situation I think it's time to make a decision here. At least for the extent of this project, though, I need a place to put it that won't go down for days (weeks) at a time.

I'll PM you all soon on the specifics.




EDIT:

Ok nevermind that. I'll give it one more major downtime. No point to moving yet since I'm almost done anyway.

Yay SEN production is back! Hopefully no more bad things will come right? :P

And yea, I've got a few more things you could add to your map but ill hush about them :D

Do tell. I won't be open to new ideas for much longer. I'm reaching the stage where I'll be focusing on completion soon.



ADDITION:
Jammed? Other? You guys must have changed your names because I can't PM you. If you want to test please reply so I know you're still here.

Jammed here.

Ok I forwarded the PM to you.

I'll try my best to make it to next testing. It's good to see some update after the incident though

Its wasnt an incident! IT WAS AN OUTBREAK! D:

Progress Report: Woo I just added the first part of the gameplay progression. Feels good to finally be getting to it. It's basically just a little cutscene, but it does at least amount to taking the first step in this part which I'm glad to finally be doing.

I'm far from done on the features end of things, but what I have left is saved for my final checklist so I can worry about it later. This is kinda the last point I'll be able to accept any new ideas or make changes. After this, there's no going back.


Anyway, I'll send out a PM soon on our next test session. Hopefully it'll be Saturday, but I need to confirm a few things first.

I cant find the new beginning part but if you're talking about the new cut scene you're adding, I dont think its really a good idea. You should give like the story while the game is being played

It's only kinda a cutscene. It just shows you that there's a war going on.

Oh, I guess thats alright then

Saturday is going to be the same for me, I should be able to come. :P Can't wait to see :D

Ok Saturday is on. Looks like I can make it.

I'll try to get the last few tidbits knocked off by then.

I would like to test.

Ok you're added. Still working on those tweaks/fixes so it might be awhile until the next test. I'll be on when they're done, though.

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Muwhahaha ^_^

Holy jesus! Got enough spawners mebe?

I'm gonna guess you had a map hack for that too right?



ADDITION:
Progress Update: Ok, today's testing marathon is over. I think we're starting to reach the stage where things are finally coming together. Gone are the old gameplay debilitating bugs (save one, which I quickly exploited on discovery during one of our testing match ). Things are also starting to get balanced finally, so matches can now take place that are actually a bit fun now (once you get used to the system, at least).

I'd like to thank Dark_Marine_123, BlooDMooN, Canthan (I'd thought I signed him up for some reason but I guess I didn't ), and Hinoatashi for helping with testing today (let me know if I missed anyway... sorry Jaff for starting before you could get in the lat game ). I've still got some work left yet to try to reduce the lag and complete the polish, as well as finish the gameplay progression.



I've decided I'm gonna release this now in THREE stages, actually. The first will be just core feature-complete gameplay... pretty much what you guys have already seen now. I can probably do that pretty soon, so I'll try not to make you all wait on that. The next stage will be to add the gameplay progression. That is where the real fun starts to shape. The last stage will be the extended features, such as the overheat system, scientists, team upgrades, and all that funky stuff.

How does that sound?

Make sure you fixed the p4 spawner glitch and p4 factory armor glitch