I got a job (and SOTS II) (and new Plasma Conduit map versio

posted on July 4th, 2011, 1:38 am

So I haven't been on for almost a week now, and I wanted to drop the community a line before things got too bad.  I have no doubt you're all reeling from my absence, staring blankly at your screens with hopeless eyes just waiting, desperately waiting for some word from me.  I suspect Myles has broken down into tears more than once.  Ah, but such is life without me.  Be strong, friends!!!

...yeah, just wanted to let people know that I got a job and that's why I haven't been posting long balance changes or asking for people to test my maps every 5 minutes.  The job itself is only 20 hours a week, in the evenings, but it's forced me to pay more attention to the rest of my time as well.  I'll be back in force someday soon.

Another thing that has been distracting my attention is the Sword of the Stars II forums.  For those who aren't familiar with the game, you can think of it as a competitor for Sins of a Solar Empire, a 4X game that focuses on combat more than empire management.  They just released a progress video and it looks ABSOLUTELY SWEET!!!!!  You guys should check it out (it's not out till september though, so keep playing Fleet Ops)

Sword of the Stars II: Exclusive Gameplay & The Lords of Winter Revealed! « AngryJoeShow

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And finally, for anybody who's read this far, I AM still working on my 3v3 map Plasma Conduit (the redo).  The feedback I got was very positive before I had to take a break, so you guys should all try it out and drop comments in this thread.  I'd really appreciate it if you guys could run some fleets around the corners and make sure the pathing is okay, that's my biggest concern before I call it finished.

Here's the file: http://ge.tt/8daWoe5

And here is the layout:

Major changes from the previous version include scaling it down from 20x20 to 16x16 (15x15 if you consider the damage nebulas around the edge) and improving the moon layout.

Plasma Conduit makes it easy to raid the enemy's mining, with strategic green nebulas and back-door routes, but don't devote too many ships to raiding because you might find an armada at your doorstep.

posted on July 4th, 2011, 2:07 am

Looks like a cool map!

posted on July 4th, 2011, 3:25 am

I hear ya man all these pesky jobs cutting into our gaming time

posted on July 5th, 2011, 11:38 pm

I have missed you Tryptic  get back soon so we can play our romulans vs feds rematch 

posted on July 14th, 2011, 4:27 pm

Hey Tryptic, thanks for this awesome map. It's one of my favorites. The pathing worked fine so far.



Just some ideas:

Possibly change the moons (marked blue), this could end up in more fighting around the sides.

Or maybe stretch the map overall a bit on it's vertical axis (marked red). It seems like the distance on the sides (marked green) is too short in comparison to the other side of the middle (marked yellow), mostly ending up in fights on just one small area (marked green), or huge AllIn battles (at least the matches i've played so far).

Dunno if both ideas combined would be a good idea, was just a suggestion anyways.


Whatever, i love your map.

posted on July 14th, 2011, 4:32 pm

i remember playing on this map... I didn't see the dilth expansion and I was running only on home moons cuz my "allies" were only yelling and not pointing out the expansion >.>;

FYI: i was in the middle....

posted on July 14th, 2011, 5:40 pm

Thanks for the feedback beserene, the picture makes it easy to follow 

I'm seriously considering tweaking it in the ways you suggested.  In the original, larger version, I was afraid the sides would be too easy to go around and raid, but now that your enemy is right in front of you, you can't spare the ships to do it.

I'm thinking I'll add a Di moon to the top left and bottom right corners, turning that into a moon pair.  A third tri moon is very rarely needed, and it offers the possibility of both players getting a 3rd di moon (yeah like that'll happen...but at least it's possible)

I also want to slide the starting locations around a bit and figure out what works best.  I intentionally made it to be easier to reach your enemies than your friends, the map is working properly if most of the fighting happens in the green areas you marked.  The goal was to give the feeling of trench warfare and require sharp coordination between teammates.  This is not an easy map to get used to: in the few games I've played instead of observing I've done terribly 

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One thing I want to point out that might not be immediately obvious, but the central dilithium moons are positioned in such a way that your miners will dip into the green nebula as they mine.  It's only about 1/4 of the time, but it'll help them to recover if they take damage without dying.  This is meant to offset how ridiculously hard it is to defend that position.  I might do the same thing with the corner moons, since a 3rd Di moon sometimes feels like more trouble than it's worth.