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Hey everyone. I have gotten back into Starcraft and want to make and finish a map. You may have played my only other realy map, Sorcery RPG, but it is like over 3 years old. Anyways, I want to make a multiplayer RPG with Air/Ground units. One of those board/unboard air units and travel around. I have a lot of ideas and any suggestions are welcome:

-Choose from 3 different classes of ground units (prolly firebat, rine, ghost) and each class has different advantages for flying, ground attacks, etc.
-Choose whether you will fly terran or protoss (Make up some space name for these different types of planes)
-Start out by buying a plane and customizing it (Wraith/Scout)
--Planes will have attributes that can be upgraded
----Fuel capacity (Gas counter. Goes down while in flight. Crash if run out. Can refuel for a price just like healing)
----Fuel efficiency (Counter that will decrease the speed at which fuel is burned as it is upgraded)
----Ship Energy (Will be the food limit counter. Create a hydra to increase the energy stored up. And kill them when energy is used. I am thinking I can use this for "town portals". In order to warp back to town, you have to have enough energy. I am looking for other ideas as to how I could use this energy feature for something else interesting. I was trying to make the cpu give defense matrix...but it only seems to do it when the ship's health is extremely low. Can anyone help on this?)
----?Maybe do a ship health points %. This could be another feature of the planes that can be upgraded. I am not sure if I should include this or not for the sake of overcomplication of the gameplay.
----?I am also pondering whether to make minerals like upgrade points. When you fly for a certain amount of time you "increase your skills" and can upgrade ship plating/attack. I would then of course make custom score the money for the game and have it displayed on the leaderboard. Only reason I want to do this is because I think it is dumb/unrealistic for an RPG when you upgrade a ship and if you get a ship later on it will also be upgraded. If you are just increasing 'your skill' then it makes more sense. This is also why if you fly terran, you fly terran the whole map!

-Eventually you will be able to buy better aircrafts like BCs and Corsairs and then upgrade them as well.
-I am going to make most of these timers just like Sorcery RPG (Unit walking timers. upgrading will make a faster unit/slower unit whichever the case)
-I want to have some kind of "spells" like I did in Sorcery, but the only way to implement this would be through Bombs/missles or maybe with the ship energy? This is where I need the most help. I need ideas for bombs/missles. I have the scourge = heat seeking missle idea. Any others would be greatly appreciated!
-You will be able to land planes on beacons and walk around and do stuff.
-I dont have much of an idea for storyline...aliens invading and everyone is going crazy and you have to kill everyone...something like that. Storyline/quests are last on the list. I want solid gameplay first.

Please give me feedback on any and all of these ideas. Your help is most appreciated and will be credited if used. Is this whole thing dumb? or should I go with it. Any additional ideas (for different classes, ship attributes, etc.) are welcome! The only decent arial rpg I've played is called Space Pirate War, but it is much different than my idea. If you have any maps similar to my idea, let me know cause I want this to be original! If I finish this, there might be a good RPG that doesnt have an 'Archer' class involved Thank you in advance fellow mappers,

bearcat_fan

Lol, I like you just because you've said that

But your map sounds really original to me ! I like it. I got same ideas for your energy:
- Temporarely invincible
- Restore shields (only with protoss ships)
- Create dublicate (hallucinations)
- Missle Inferno: create multiple cloacked wraiths (on your location) for a unit that is friendly with you but not with your enemy but doesn't have shared vision with you, the wraiths will start shooting missles at your enemy's.
- Same can be done with Valkyries, Devoures, etc. only then you should create them very short so they'll have just enough time to shoot once and then disapear, but I don't know that will be fast enough so you won't notice them (much).
- When you're above land you can also use cloacked ghosts for attacks
- Disquise (sp??): Temporarely changes you into a 'harmless' Kakura (flying critter), you can do this by simple create a Kakura and teleport you real ship to a corner and you lose control over him

Got enough ideas ?

And I've an other idea:
- Radar: you can buy a rader to increase your sight and lets you see cloacked units, this can simple be doen by constantly teleporting a observer under you.

Thanks Deadalus! Those are some great ideas and I will definately incorporate them. More ideas/comments would help me out a lot! One of my goals for this map will be replayability. What I mean is, when someone plays for the first time I want them to come back. I want the three classes and two ship types to be very unique so that it is replayable and refreshing. So having special "spells" for different classes, like the recharge shields is great. Keep those ideas coming...no idea is dumb!

bearcat_fan

I'd love to help... but It'd be easier to communicate in something more instantaneous and brainstorm together...

Then when everything is written out, work on it piece by piece. I get map, work on one aspect - You get map work on another, etc.

I'd love to help, Sorcery Is one of my favorite RPG's... no plot or anything which sucks, but one of the best made back in the days. As far as advanced.

Sorcery Rpg was defenitely one of the BIGGEST RPGS out back in the time of us old school starcraft players.

Sincerely I'd love to work on it with you, but i'm swamped with an rpg series and Co-project, but of course I'd love to give Assist and feedback.

1)Try to make it so in beginning of game you NEED to only use a ground Unit. Make it so owning a Plane costs alot of Money, so you have to do some of the game as a normal Unit first.

2)Rent-a-plane/Faire
-Rent a Plane for a Short amount of time, if you begin to go over the allowed time, you're fined a Huge sum, If you're money goes to 0 and you're in debt, your rent-a-plane and you are destroyed.

-Allow people to use Fairys for the Beginning portion of the game, and have areas restricted to people until they buy a plane.

3)Mercenaries?
-Can Players participate in Military Battles, or Faction Battles and work for money?
More on this idea later.

Goodluck with the Map!

Can you mention my name in the game somewhere for helping you ?

I like Tdnfthe1 (how the heck do you say that) ideas, except for the money loans. I love the mercenary/battle idea though, it whould be great if you could join a faction and get money from them if you fight for them and do jobs. Talking about jobs... add jobs !!! And then not only 'kill that evil guy' but also things like helping stranded pilots, escort an convoy, scout the area, etc.

But why do you only do two aircrafts ? You could use the Valkyrie and Corsair, their problem that they can only attack air can be constantly teleporting a Vulture, Siege tank, Reaver or burrowed Lurker under them. But then you whould get problems with cliffs, it is no problem that you can't use your anti ground gun on sea coz their aren't going to be much land units their huh. And a problem is that you can't manually target your anti ground gun, but that's not a really big deal I think.
An other problem is that you will probably see the units under them, the only thing you can do about that is using small units like Marines. Then you whould have a air-air gun and a air-air/ground gun.

Hmmm, now I get another nice idea. If you use big ships like Carriers and Battlecruisers you can easily have a unit under it coz you won't see it. Then it whould just seem that you can buy extra weapons for them, sounds good huh. Whould be kinda cool if you start with a wecky scout with two stupid rocket launchers and end with an Carrier with 8 Intercepters, 2x2 Hellfire missles and 4 Machine guns .

All these ideas are from Deadalus copyright 2005. If you want to use them you should contact the respective owner, which is me, and pay him atleast 200 minerals for each idea. If you don't do that you will get and and and then you'll be totaly until you look like !!!
Ahem.... just ignore me please

No offence, but in order to have someone's name in a map, I think you'd need to contribute A LOT or something extremely significant to the game.

I mean if every person who ever advised the creator has their name put in the game, it'd be a list of like 50 people.

Thanks for the offer to help make the map Drakiel, but I prefer to make my maps solo because of real life time constraints and what not. I am planning on having more than 2 ships. I guess my explanation was bad. I meant two ship types (Protoss and Terran). Once you get lots of cash, you can buy new/bigger/better ships which can in turn be upgraded to be even better. I like the idea of not getting a ship right from the beginning. I have been thinking about upgrades. When you kill a unit while having your ground unit, you will get points toward a ground unit upgrade of armor/weapons. When you kill units with a plane, you will get more skill towards ship attack/armor. So like once you get a certain amount of points (probably an invisible death counter) you will "level up" in either ground combat or air combat. I think this will make for an interesting gameplay. Basically, the more you fight on the ground, the stronger you become on the ground. The same goes for arial fighting. This could lead to some solid teamplay as some can go air, and some ground. Having jobs is a great idea, but will be a lot of trigger work. There could be jobs like "deliver this package to port A" and make a mini map ping. Then you would be rewarded for a completed job. It would be hard to create a battle that you participate in, but it definately can be done. I will keep that in the back of my mind when designing the base triggers. Deadalus, you have some cool ideas, but I want to make this in a space titleset. Most of the map will be space, so ground units wont work in this way. There will be tons of beacons to land on and engage in ground combat. This will make for interesting strategies because you will be able to choose a Valkarie that has high attack power, but it can only attack air. Having a valk will mean you will need a strong ground unit. By the way, has anyone ever seen a map that uses food limit as a counter? I kinda just thought of it and I was wondering if anyone has seen it in a map(Im sure Im not the first to think of it). Thanks a TON for everyone's ideas. They are really helping, and please keep them coming!

bearcat_fan

Eeehm... I really hope you didn't thought I was serious

But ontoppic: Whould is also be possible to buy Carriers and Battlecruisers ? Whould be fun on one side but it whould even be much cooler if only the factions and army's get them coz they aren't really for private use I think .
Ow and for the tactic that some guys go ground and other air, make it possible to buy an Arbiter .

I suggest playing the map Gunship RPG if you haven't already, it is slightly more similar to your idea than Space Pirate RPG is. I'm not sure if SEN has that map in it's downloads database.

I downloaded that map from starcraft.org. I have played that before. It is primitive and I hope to go far more in depth than that. Ill try to play it through and see if I come up with any good ideas from it at least. Thanks for the recommendation!

K well i have ideas comming out of my ass, when it comes to any game.

I was thinking "wow these great ideas, I'll make my own" But since I probably never WILL make my own...

Bear, if you're gonna make a good map... Go all the way!

I was thinking... a map with Mechs.
There's.... Suites, Mechs, and Air.

Something like this:

Suites:
Marine = Gunner Suite
Ghost = Sniper Spy Suite
Firebat = Flamethrower Suite
Zealot = Power Suite
Zergling = Bio Suite (zergling is VERY limited, as with anything "bio" in this world, you CANNOT enter vehicles, can't change suites, and any other limitations.

Mechs:
Goliath = Mech Warlord
Tank = Tank
Lightning Bug = Vulture
Destroyer = Reaver (with "spore colony" perserve- move to location)
Pulse Cannon = Dragoon

Flights
Wraith = Stealth Fighter
Scout = Gunner Ship
Valkyrie = Anti-Air Desicrator
Battle Cruiser = Warship
Carrier = Mothership

Suite must be bought at the "town" for all players - or found throughout the land.

Mechs can either be stolen from enemies, stolen from other players (if player vs. player is what you want, if not, then just steal from enemies).
Mechs can also be bought in the town.
AND mechs can also be "Built" - when you kill an enemy, there's a random chance that the enemy can drop whatever part it is:

Stealth Fighter - drops stealth fighter parts (wing, body, tail, etc.)
Tanks - drop tank parts (cannon, ground belt, etc)

And you acn BUILD your own vechicle, but it also costs money.

Suites have NO limit what-so-ever, AND you can "Enter" a vehicle while still wearing a suite - ie when your vehicles dies, then you appear with your current suite where the vehicle died.
(Give suite to neutral comp, move your previous unit to the side of the screen - when players vehicle dies, move the neutral comp suite BACK to where the vehicle died and give back to player)

Vehicles have the limit of... GAS - gas will go down VERY VERY Slowly (because it'll get freakin' annoying havn't to worry about gas all the time) - If gas runs out, your vehicle is given to neutral comp AT IT'S place - and your "suite" pops out of it. You can't take over your own vehicle back or anyone elses vehicle unless you have gas.

When you exit your vehicle (you can exit anywhere, not just beacons) - then give vehicle to neutral comp (so now anyone can steal it).

So yea, those are my ideas.
It's awesome in theory, and heck won't even take as much work as it sounds like it would... but it just takes someone DOING it.

ALL of what I said is completely possible flawlessly in starcraft.

Use what you will, or reject all of what I just said.

ADDITION:
BTW - THere are so many mispellings and grammatical errors in that post it's not even funny ;op After rereading it - I'm sure you get what I'm saying. Typing too fast.

I completed a landing/boarding system and tested it on Bnet. If a player goes to a beacon, his unit comes out and he loses control of his plane. (Plane goes invincible) Returning to the plane lets the player get back in the plane. It works perfectly and the map is going to have five players. While I really like your ideas Drakiel, I am going to stick to my original idea of a flying RPG. I am worried that if I do all I want to do...I will go over the string limit. Keep those good ideas flowing...

-bearcat_fan