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STF is a Total Conversion whose focus in on teamplay, unit tactics, and choice. The age-old RTS concept of the tech tree is removed, and in it's place is what I like to call the choice system.

On your Hub, you can build 5 different add-ons, each one capable of building two unique units tailored to a certain playstyle. Assault, Pyrotechnic, Espionage, Support, and Siege. Right from the onset of the game you are given a choice of how you want to play the game. As is your opponent.

With a tech tree, you can be fairly certain what your opponent has access to at the beginning of the game. In STF, you can have access to any unit, though once you select an add-on acquiring another one is an expensive endeavor. However, even in the very beginning of the game, you never know what your opponent might throw at you.

There is also no unit hierarchy. Every unit is meant to stand against any other given the right situation. It's all about unit tactics to achieve victory, not whoever builds 12 Carriers/Battlecruisers first.

Unlike most RTS games, STF emphasizes small squad tactics, rather than massive armies. Through a system of high costs and low supply head, the game becomes a skirmish war, rather than one giant build-up of units and a single ultimate 10-second end-game battle. An individual unit's importance is much greater in STF, and keeping him alive is key. In combat, tactics are what win in STF, not build strategy and overwhelming massing.

Base building is de-emphasized, the focus instead on getting right to combat. From Snipers hidden in cover taking potshots while deadly Spies move in as spotters and invisible assassins, to Demomen saturating the area with a hail of grenades while Pyros swath the path with fiery death and liberal Napalm use, battles are fast and frantic with a demand for your adrenaline. One beta tester commented after losing a game of STF, "This is intense!"

Any questions?

http://stf.campaigncreations.org/Downloads/STF_244.zip

Could you please explain it first? For all I know it could be some .dat mod.

Give like a brief explination on what you changed

You guys have never heard of STF?

Here, look at their ModDB entry: http://mods.moddb.com/1870/starcraft-team-fortress/

There's also some screenshots in the 6th Mod Night thread

Dear Voyager7456:
You guys had a gaming night of STF? Very cool. Shame I didn't know, otherwise I would've interrogated you all for feedback. =oP


Dear Kookster and SubFocus:
STF is a Total Conversion whose focus in on teamplay, unit tactics, and choice. The age-old RTS concept of the tech tree is removed, and in it's place is what I like to call the choice system.

On your Hub, you can build 5 different add-ons, each one capable of building two unique units tailored to a certain playstyle. Assault, Pyrotechnic, Espionage, Support, and Siege. Right from the onset of the game you are given a choice of how you want to play the game. As is your opponent.

With a tech tree, you can be fairly certain what your opponent has access to at the beginning of the game. In STF, you can have access to any unit, though once you select an add-on acquiring another one is an expensive endeavor. However, even in the very beginning of the game, you never know what your opponent might throw at you.

There is also no unit hierarchy. Every unit is meant to stand against any others given the right situation. It's all about unit tactics to achieve victory, not whoever builds 12 Carriers/Battlecruisers first.

It's revived! I kept periodically checking the STF site over the past year, seeing if there was any progress being made, but none ever seemed to be happening...has there been any progress on the Metaphyte tech tree, or is this just an update that makes the old one 1.14 compatible? Great job on the last beta; I really liked it, and I have no reason to suspect that this one will be any worse.

And Voy, I think we may have found our Mod Night 22 candidate.

Yeah, it might be good to play STF again, we haven't done it in... 18 weeks...

Dear Voyager7456:
Shoot, let me know when you're having it so I can try to attend. Are they held during the week or weekend? Weekends I'm free, but I work long hours on the weekdays (10-12hrs average, not including an hour travel both ways).

By the way, I'm assuming you have the FG Beta, so you need to update all your mods with it so I can give 'em a whirl. =o)



Dear Lord_Agamemnon:
Progress was halted for some time, for various reasons too numerous and long ago to recount. However, I never once considered throwing in the towel. I make it a point to finish what I start.

As for the Metaphyte, well, lately I've been contemplating a scaling down of STF to a more reasonable level, to benefit its completion schedule. In short, cutting the Metaphyte and Observers out of the equation in favor of a more robust Human faction.

I might keep the Observers, though, depending how my new design for the Humans ultimately turns out, but that’s up in the air at the moment. I’m actually quite excited about where I’m headed with STF. FireGraft has reinvigorated me with the possibilities it will offer.

Things as 'simple' as the shield battery unusable for anything other than Protoss units have long crippled my ability to take STF where I originally wanted to go. FireGraft promises to change all that. The above version of STF that I have released demonstrates one such impossible change—the Ammoman has 5 ammo packs. 'Simple', yet revolutionary to Starcraft modding.

Mod Night is every Friday, from 5 EST to whenever we feel like leaving, on channel Mod Night on Games Podolsk.

Wow that sounds pretty cool, Im gonna check it out!

So we playing this for next mod night now?

Well I just checked out the images and played abit, I give you cudos this is sweet!

Woa. I'm glad you guys updated this, I liked this mod because of how it played.

HLTF Ftw!

It's at 6 East. And if you live in the West(the best) It's Mod Day, at 3 PM.

Well that sucks, I'm often at work until 6pm or later on Fridays, and I live in Arizona. Since we don't do Daylight Savings, our time zone is either Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of the year.

Sweet mod man. I didn't get to fully have a go at it, but from what I've seen so far it's phenomenal.

Thank you for all the compliments everyone. The AI is a little gimp when it comes to expanding properly and attacking after the first few waves, but sometimes it suprises me. A recent test game with 7 Human AI opponents on Tribes was quite fun.

For those new to STF, one of the most unfortunate things about being the creator of something is that you never get to experience it for the first time. First impressions are invaluable.

If you could jot down your thoughts as you experience STF for the first time, what you did, where you got confused, what you liked, disliked, wondered about and then figured out, just anything and everything to allow me to see through your eyes, however vicariously, and learn from it.

Thank you. =o)

The AI is better at STF than it is at most mods. Stop glaring at me, everyone...

Well, the first time I played it was about a year and a half ago I can't remember exactly what I thought at the time, but I was quite impressed since it was only the second mod I ever played and the first one I downloaded. But I'll tell you what I like/dislike, am confused about, etc. since I know all about the "it's never the first time for the creator" thing.

-The units are good and interesting. I wish that Cloak cost more, since there's only one detector available to everyone and it gets owned easily by Spies, but that's just because I played the comp a lot.

-The AI could use a bit of randomness. I think there's a random jump command in AIScripting, and it would be nice to see an opponent that didn't always build an Espionage Facility first.

-What? The Sentrygun lv. 1 and 2 aren't detectors? That sucks against the computer.

-And the last thing that confused me, although it's not worth losing sleep over:
"Toaster #2 brought a knife to the gun fight"
WHAT THE HECK?

How do the hybrids and observers work?

Dear CheatEnabled:
Hybrids are broken, never play them.

Observers are for team games, or if you're feeling gutsy against AIs set against one another. The main idea behind the Observers is that in a team game, by playing the Observers you provide your teammates with invaluable intel on the enemy position and movements, but are subsequently helpless to do any damage yourself.

With proper aide from your teammates, you can utilize a Gray to commandeer a severly damaged Hub. At that point in the game, you can play as a normal Human player, though with the advantages of Observer units at a cost of being behind in economy and tech.

A Commandeered Hub also has a sixth add-on: The Leyline. It is quite powerful.


Dear Lord_Agamemnon:
Thank you very much. =o)

1) Scouts: Luckily, the Scout is the fastest unit in the game (well, second if you count the UFO), and the Spy is melee, so you can keep your distance from Spies. Snipers are another story. You either need to rush them while they're targetting something else, or run.

2) AI: Yes, I know this very well. In subsequent versions the AI will undergo a makeover.

3) Detection: Yes, that was intentional. Because only one Human unit cloaks, I didn't want to make detection too prevalent and risk nullifying the Spy's usefulness. You either need to pay for it with a Lvl3 Sentrygun, or keep backup Scouts. Scouts are fast (meaning they can move to hotspots as you need them), but as you said, very frail. They also have a slightly smaller sight radius than Spies, meaning a clever player can pick off an opponent's Scouts by inching their Spies just close enough for the Snipers to get a bead on their Scouts.

4) Toasters: Hehe. =o)

Oh one quick question... Where did you get the custom sounds and graphics from?

Graphics were by our art team (primarily JackBlack). Many of the sounds come from Half-Life, with editing done by me (the advisor, for instance). Assorted credits include:

Jstek with his work on the Harrier model (not present in this version)

Mr.MapDesignerGuy for the AI

DarkWizzard for BIN editing

Justin Durban, Marcus Aurelius, and Justin Skomarovsky for the music (not present in this version)

Xealous for the website graphics

JackBlack for the unit models and portraits

Little John for...well, almost making the building graphics. He worked on the Hub and Floating Fortress models (and some of the old Hybrid units), but disappeared before finishing or sending me anything other than screenshots.

Lavarinth for the title splash and hosting the STF Warzone server (no longer operational)

DiscipleOfAdun for FireGraft (which is kickass)

CampaignCreations for the many years of hosting

All the STF beta testers, fans, and forum-goers

The Camelot Systems crew for all the tools they produced and making modding possible

And unless I'm forgetting someone, pretty much everything else was done by me.

I'd be honored if you tried them. I'm planning on converting them this week anyway.



Maybe we could move it to Saturday.

This Saturday? If so, that'd be perfect.

Whenver I try to download it, it only downloads the first 1MB and then tells me that the dl is done. WTF?

Dear CaptainCrunch:
After just checking, no problems on the server's end. Still having the same trouble?


Dear Voyager:
As for Mod Night, how do I connect to this Games Podolsk server? Bare in mind STF works over BattleNet, so using a custom server isn't necessary.

It worked fine on my other computer, but I haven't tried it again today. I'll PM you the instructions for how to get onto Podolsk, since it's illegal and you're not allowed to post it.