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Mind Harvest

1 Player UMS
128x128
Jungle Tileset
Episode 2(?) in Terran campaign

What is the plot?
After escaping his failed experiment site on Urakas (see A Grander Vision), Duran has moved to his processing location on the world of Addrin. Numerous processes are taking place on this world in order to further the schemes of Duran, but none so worrisome to the newly united Protoss/Terran Alliance as the mass harvesting of Khaydarin crystal. These key sites must be taken out by whatever means necessary. Perhaps a new addition to the UED Fleet would help.

What makes this map unique?
You rely largley on a new unit, the MA-24 Heavy Bomber. This former Transport has been heavily modified with Crystellium Armor and equipped with a payload of 6 Positron Bombs. You have numerous key targets that must be destroyed, but much of your attack capabilities have been crippled. Your only hope is to bomb the snot out of Duran's production sites.

Is darth_ender going to reveal any plot spoilers for this episode?
I don't know yet. What do my readers think I should do?



Original Post:
The title of this thread is a possible title for my new map underway. I guess any artist knows that he is bound to have flops at times. My map with the infested carrier was just having too much trouble and wasn't receiving very positive feedback (what little it even was getting). That project is now going to scrapped...except for one thing. Though I screwed it up when posting it, I had a beautiful system going with that infested carrier. It really looked cool, though no one but I has been able to enjoy it. With my newest map, I believe I can preserve the idea and triggers and incorporate it into my new map.
Here's the basic idea: obviously Duran's plans were never limited to what was seen on Urakas. He has greater goals in sights, not just some psychically unstable zealots and an infesting dark templar. In order to fully complete his project, he needs more control. To get more control, he is harvesting incredible amounts khaydarin crystal for an unknown purpose. He is also beginning to utilize Terran technology and biology in his work. This new map starts with a fleet prepared to vanquish this harvesting site and a few other key targets. Unfortunately, a surprise nuke attack takes out this fleet, and only a few units remain. Among these are...(a new unit, cue the drumroll)...HEAVY BOMBERS! That's right, this will be a mission where precision bombing is necessary to take out these key targets. Along the way, you learn more of Duran's goals, and though you succeed (ideally) at destroying your targets and successfully completing your mission, you realize that you still will not have defeated Duran.
Unique things in this map are:
-Drones harvesting large amounts of Khaydarin crystal (looks cool)
-Infested command center with nuclear silo
-A second attempt at the Infested Carrier
-Heavy bombers, whose damage actually depends on proximity to the target
Updates will follow. Sorry, progress may be slow. I work a lot. It won't be too bad, though. Be patient, and I think this may be rewarding.

Sound's nice

I hope you get some screen shot's up, I wanna see the bombers in action, If you don't mind

I'd be happy to provide some screen shots. I don't have the bombers actually done yet. I've been creating other things (nuclear command center, drones with crystals, re-applying the infested carrier). It is my next part of the project, so you should see some pictures soon.

im not sure which thread to reply to because u have attempted so many sequels to the map.

Actually I've been constantly updating A Grander Vision, whether it be for four-players or one. The only true sequel I attempted was Wormhole, the original map with the infested carrier. I know what you mean though, I keep trying several different projects. Well, this one is so far the best of the bunch. So you know what has been scrapped, Wormhole and four-player Grander Vision are no longer going to come forth. They're dead. I believe this new one will live.
Bombers are already coming along nicely, btw.

oh ok. im not confused anymore. i still have to try your map with the infested carrier because ive heard it got good reviews

I have a question, is this with mods like the pics of the carrier will be diff or what?

I'm not a modder. I really have very little computer programming skills. What I do is I use very complicated sets of triggers to create desired effects. Though I'm more limited than a modder would be, the advantage of my style is that anyone can play my maps without having to download anything extra.
The infested carrier is just the hero carrier (Gantrithor) renamed, and with scourges swarming around it instead of interceptors. It looks pretty cool. I think people will like it.
urmom, though somebody said nice things about the map (and personally I didn't think the idea was that bad) I kept having mistakes in the early versions that prevented people from playing it enjoyably. If you want, I could post a somewhat working version with no dialogue or mission briefing (I never got to that point) and hopefully most of the gameplay glitches gone. The only reason you might want to though is just to view the infested carrier. You might just prefer to wait a short time until I release an early version of this for people to view. Whatever you like.

could you attach the map actually? im interested in your idea and i want to see what it would look like and what triggers you used.

Okay, here are the screenies for Mind Harvest (I'm liking that name better, though it's still not final). What you have are a fine example of a working nuke silo connected to an infested Terran Command Center, drones harvesting crystal, the very cool looking infested carrier, and a bomber doing a run. I haven't been able to touch this map for two days because I've been working so much, but today I made the bomber capable of killing men. The graded building damage is a bit more complicated, so I'm not ready for that yet, but here is the best of what's done so far.
[attachmentid=12251][attachmentid=12254][attachmentid=12253][attachmentid=12252][attachmentid=12255][attachmentid=12256]
What does everyone think?

ADDITION:
Wow, I love all this stuff about shields on Terran and in the future, Zerg. I don't really understand it much, but if I could get the hang of it, it sure would come in handy for the theme of this overall campaign (with Duran trying to assimilate all the species). Any help on the concept would be appreciated.

ADDITION:
What's a guy gotta do to get some feedback?

Well you could send porn but that could be an act of stupidity. I think it's great. But I really want to see a Mod of it, Yeah you don't know anything about Mod but maybe ask someone to work with you.

Anyway, get it to work and it might be a really cool map!

Darth, try DTBKs new MemCalc. It has an easy to use interface, so you should be able to learn fast.

... then you could have real Hybrids! Zerg with shields, etc...

Heck, yeah. The benefits of this are awesome. I'll try to figure it out.

ADDITION:
OH MY GOSH, I FIGURED IT OUT!!! Gosh, I'm so excited. The kinds of maps I like to make are continuations of the original Starcraft plot. I try to make original twists to them, so I can expand SC's trigger universe, but still I keep it limited to actual Starcraft. I'm not so into the other kinds like Defense maps, bounds or anything. Anyway, I have been struggling with ideas on how to continue the theme of Duran crossing Protoss and Zerg. I did what I feel was a very good job on my map, A Grander Vision, but I didn't want to just re-hash that in future maps (as this ultimately would be a campaign). With these EUD Triggers, I can do so much now. I'm sure I'm not the only one at all who will take advantage of these new abilities, but I sure am excited as heck! I hope my fanbase, small as it may be will appreciate my work in the future. I've just had 1,000 new doors opened before me. A thank you goes to Deathknight.

Hmm...I'd wait until the EUD Triggers become a staple part of map making. Right there, they are very unpredictable in terms of staying functional if a new patch were to come out. Though, I do like the look of your map. Might wanna give colour to some of the units, makes the map look nicer. Also, will the bomb affect air units/ and or destroy the infested carrier?


Care elaborating a bit more?

Look at the screenshot. You drop the firebat and anything within a small location of the firebat dies, bigger location, take a lot of damage, even bigger location, little damage. Get it?

The only problem I see with that if extremely weak units are on the outside actually recover hp from the bomb then right?

The bombs are powerful enough to destroy any ground unit immediately. Basically they do like 750 points worth of damage at the outer edge of the explosive radius (I'm working on a specific amount). Snake)Ling was exactly right in the use of locations for graded damage. It is more complicated than people might think though. As you pointed out Ultimo, you can't just set HP to a different percentage, because if the building was already damaged once, it would only set it back to the same point, even recovering buildings that were below a certain point. What I have devised is a more complicated system. Each building has a player's score monitering it's damage. Let's elaborate: say you bomb a Hive but it was on the outer edge of the explosion. What then happens is Player 4 has custom score modified to add 1. Then, under conditions, Player 4's custom score equals exactly 1, set hp for Hive at 'location' to 67%. Later you bomb the Infested Command Center with nuke silo. You were more direct so it adds 3 to Player 4's minerals. Player 4 has at least 3 minerals, kill Infested Command Center at 'location2' etc.
BTW, the bombs themselves are limited and are not replenishable (due to the nuked base at the beginning of the map). The importance of making your bombing runs count in this map is critical. You have three bombers, each with 6 bombs. Should I post an early version soon so everyone can see how it works, or should I wait?



As far as the EUD triggers, do you really think a patch would fix it? I can't help but think it would take a really heavy patch to fix it, as these triggers actually affect the basic coding. Not that I know much of anything about that. Still, in addition, Blizzard hasn't corrected glitches such as cloaking units that aren't meant to cloak, etc. Even though they designed Staredit with limitations, it seems as if they haven't minded enough the cool tricks people have found to stop them. You may be right, though about waiting till it is more of a staple. This map won't involve that aspect of Duran's plans, so maybe it will be more stablized by the time I get to the next one. We'll see

I'm just saying that a possible patch could scramble our current findings, and maps utlizing the EUD triggers. Also, how will you take into account damage not done by bombs? Or is it that only the bomber can access the buildings? Or, there is no attacking units?

You know Ultimo, you've got me thinking. Originally the bombers were going to do all the offensive work. The only other thing you would have to do is defend your base against Zerg raids. All the key bombing buildings were out of reach for other units, making the mentioned system workable. However, that does seem to make things dull, but if I use other units to any extent, it would really hampers the effects of my bombers. On the other hand, I am going to try working with these EUD triggers. I am a little nervous about the effects of a patch, but if I can work better with these triggers, I really could still do the graded damage for buildings. If not, I could of course just say that anything bombed dies. I would need to limit the bomb capacity, but it could still be fun. I'll keep working on it. I haven't been able to do much with my map for about a week due to work and other things. My schedule should be somewhat more free now .

ADDITION:

That's what I just wrote in the map making assistance forum. TranNova and I were (sort of) discussing how to add or subtract health. This at least lets you subtract easily enough. I will instead incorporate this system into my map. I will just have certain benchmarks. What I mean is ex. Player so-and-so has suffered at least 320000 death of unit -424353 (I'm making this up), other conditions are met for the bomb drop, then set the health down and back up to whatever level, using the EUD triggers. I know, Ultimo, that you are a little hesitant to believe in their stability, but I'm going to give it a try.
What do you think?

ADDITION:
Drat! That still won't work for what I'm trying to do, unless I permanently alter the unit's max health. I guess that's not too bad a deal, but it would be better if I could alter the hp out of the total health. Anyone have an idea?

ADDITION:
Well, I think this new Uberation version will help me a lot. I have still been surprisingly busy and unable to work on my map much. I do apologize and hope people will still be willing to help me with ideas.

ADDITION:
I've got to admit, ninebreaker has the funniest avatar I've ever seen. I can say offtopic stuff like that in my own thread. But as for my map, I am so sorry for my lack of action. I am getting ready to go back to college. I have had so little time. It's definitely not dead. Just lethargic in it's life. It will come forth soon.

Make this map 4 player, and I'll play it.

Dude 4 player? Yeah right 2 player's would be way easier. If you made a campaign before u would know. But nice map darth_ender. I've played ur other campaign Grander Vison. Nice infested zealots and stuff but that game was too easy '^^(just needa mass tanks). But the good thing about ur campaigns as that u have like semi modded Starcraft stuff and i think blizz patched out the marines with shields right?

Dude, 2 player? Dude, I have more friends than one, and I like to play games with em?

If you ever played on Bnet, you'd know that 4 is better than 2.

You want to play 4 player? Fine, edit the map when it's done to 4-player compatiable. Stop whining about it being only 2 player. And if you edit it to 4-player, you'd better give credit to original creator.

Wait, what? Edit the map to have 4 players when it has 4 players? Is that what you just said?

Sorry guys. I'm surprised by how much feedback I've gotten while I've been unable to reach a computer. I've not forgotten about you or this map, but I'm at college again and the computer lab is about to close. I will post info tomorrow. Thanks for the input.

ADDITION:
If people recall, I was originally making this whole thing into a four-player campaign. Nobody seemed too interested in that idea, so I quit making any news posts on that thread and announced that I was having too much trouble balancing with too little feedback to continue. The truth is making it four-player has always appealed to me. I suppose if enough people announce a sufficient amount of interest, I could make both the one and four-player versions like I'd originally planned. In other words:
PLEASE RESPOND
Okay, I usually avoid the overly dramatic, but I succumbed for a moment. I just enjoy receiving feedback.
As for A Grander Vision being too easy, you might want to check out the newer version. I made it harder, but I think it's still well balanced. Thanks for the compliment though.
http://www.staredit.net/index.php?download=3694