Greetings everyone, I want to show you my custom map "Fury of the Swarm".

Note: the map works on 1.16 and Remastered!

Story:
This mission tells a parallel story that happened during the second mission
of the second episode, when the Overmind ordered the Cerebrate to deliver the Chrysalis
to the beacon. Zasz and Daggoth must push back the Protoss to protect the Chrysalis
from danger, thus fulfilling the will of the Overmind.

Forces:
Orange Zerg - Zasz's Brood (player).

Red Zerg - Daggoth's Brood (ally). Together with Zasz he want to
destroy the Protoss according to the will of the Overmind.

Brown Terrans - Remnants of the Confederacy (enemy). After the destruction
of the homeworld, only scattered groups remained from the Confederation.
The player meets one of them.

Blue Protoss - Tassadar's fleet (enemy). The main opponent that you need destroy
to protect the Chrysalis and the Cerebrate.

Idea:
The mission is based on a standard map from the folder "Brood War" called "Astral Balance".

The link - https://yadi.sk/d/8yj1Y_ddxE9FIA









Video:
DK (English) - [Remastered\Commentary]

Artanis StarCraft (Russian) - [Remastered\Commentary]

RdeRenato (Spanish) - [Remastered\Commentary]


Idea for you!
1) If someone else will translate the map, then I will add the translated map to my link!
2) If someone wants to make video with walkthrough, then I will post his link!

If you will find some mistakes then write me please.

Good game!

Post has been edited 30 time(s), last time on Jun 6 2021, 2:41 pm by C(a)HeK.

Oh yeah, finally a new map in SCM format! This means that I can comfortably play it on my old PC where I only have StarCraft. Expect some feedback soon...

I will be glad to any constructive criticism

Well, it was a nice map. It would benefit from some adjustments, but still it was an enjoyable experience. You might consider turning this project into a mini campaign (3 or 4 missions) and use this map as final mission, but it works fine as a standalone map too. I completed it in 1 hour and 15 minutes, which is a fair gameplay time given the map size and objectives. The layout is nice, not too linear and not too dispersive. The resources are adequate, as I finished it with roughly 2000 minerals and 1500 gas left. Toward the end I was almost taken by surprise by a devastating wave of Scouts, but luckily I had built enough Spore Colonies and I had enough Hydralisks to retaliate. It was fun to have an allied AI, because the player can act in synchronization with it, using the allied units as decoys and thus attacking more efficiently.

Here's some suggestions to make the map even better:

- Reposition the Spawning Pool. It's too near to the bridge and it hinders the movement of your units.
- Rename the "Protoss fleet" to "Expeditionary Force". This change would be consistent with the setting and plot of the map.
- While it's nice to have some special units (Hunter Killers and Kukulza) they should not have the same color of your normal units, even if they are expendable. I suggest you to change their color (yellow would be nice) and make them rescuable. Also, I would remove the two Mutalisks (one of which is badly placed) and give the player an additional Kukulza instead.
- Enabling Burrowing right from the start would be nice, especially if you don't want to use a different color for your Hunter Killers.
- The "Enter Closest Bunker" action requires "Preserve Trigger", otherwise the Terran units will not stay into the Bukers: in fact, all Bunkers were empty when I attacked the Terrans.
- There is a transmission of a "Protoss Warrior" that uses the portrait of Aldaris: either use another portrait or rename it as Aldaris. Better yet, you could use Tassadar for those Protoss transmissions, since Aldaris is on Aiur when this map takes place, and Tassadar has a transmission at the end. This would enhance consistency.
- The additional objective of destroying the Nexi seems redundant, because the player must destroy all Protoss bases anyway. I suggest you to find a workaround for it.
- The expansion located to the left of the last Protoss base is useless, because there's no space to build an Hatchery. Either remove that expansion, or modify the map in order to give enough space to build an Hatchery.
- Change the line "As you will, the Overmind" with "As you will, Overmind".
- By the time I attacked the last Protoss base, the AI had ceased to train new units (they only had a couple of Archons and a Carrier). There are three ways to solve this:
[1] Add a trigger that gives additional minerals and gas to the Protoss when their resources run under a certain level, but in this case you should provide some more resources for the player too, or the map would become too hard.
[2] Add some minerals/gas to the resources already present on the map (I would go for this solution, so the player may be able to find some spare resources to mine once the Protoss bases are conquered).
[3] Give the Protoss more starting resources (10000 additional minearls and gas should be ok).

I hope this was helpful. Cheers!

>Reposition the Spawning Pool. It's too near to the bridge and it hinders the movement of your units.
Well, I saw some maps where were buildings are inconveniently located for the player and I desided do it the same.

>Rename the "Protoss fleet" to "Expeditionary Force". This change would be consistent with the setting and plot of the map.
Good idea! I forgot the name of the Protoss army from the original.

>While it's nice to have some special units (Hunter Killers and Kukulza) they should not have the same color of your normal units, even if they are expendable. I suggest you to change their color (yellow would be nice) and make them rescuable. Also, I would remove the two Mutalisks (one of which is badly placed) and give the player an additional Kukulza instead.
Hm, I will fix his color, thank you!
But I will not add them, because there should be few heroes and they need to be protected.

>Enabling Burrowing right from the start would be nice, especially if you don't want to use a different color for your Hunter Killers.
In Episode 2 mission 2 purple Cerebrate has not burrowing. So Sasz has not too. I think so.

>The "Enter Closest Bunker" action requires "Preserve Trigger", otherwise the Terran units will not stay into the Bukers: in fact, all Bunkers were empty when I attacked the Terrans.
Oh, i did'n know it, I'll fix, thank you!

>There is a transmission of a "Protoss Warrior" that uses the portrait of Aldaris: either use another portrait or rename it as Aldaris. Better yet, you could use Tassadar for those Protoss transmissions, since Aldaris is on Aiur when this map takes place, and Tassadar has a transmission at the end. This would enhance consistency.
Nope, there is Tassatar (templar). Look at screenshot.

>The additional objective of destroying the Nexi seems redundant, because the player must destroy all Protoss bases anyway. I suggest you to find a workaround for it.
I will think, but for now I have no idea.

>The expansion located to the left of the last Protoss base is useless, because there's no space to build an Hatchery. Either remove that expansion, or modify the map in order to give enough space to build an Hatchery.
Oh, this location has not real sense because player will kill Protoss before get that resources.
But if it no need, I can deleted it.

>Change the line "As you will, the Overmind" with "As you will, Overmind".
My bad, I'm trying to translate correctly, but I don't like "the". Thank you!

>By the time I attacked the last Protoss base, the AI had ceased to train new units (they only had a couple of Archons and a Carrier). There are three ways to solve this:
Protoss resources in screenshoot.
I thought player is enough resources which he get from Terrans, it's not true?

Yes, I know that there is Tassadar, you misunderstood me. I meant that you could use Tassadar for all Protoss transmissions that are displayed during this mission, instead of the generic "Protoss Warrior", but that's not very important.



Yes, the resources that the player gets from the Terrans are enough. As for the Protoss, you should give them 10000 additional minerals and gas (so, in total, 30000 and 30000).

>Yes, I know that there is Tassadar, you misunderstood me. I meant that you could use Tassadar for all Protoss transmissions that are displayed during this mission, instead of the generic "Protoss Warrior", but that's not very important.
Hm, not bad idea. I'll think about it.

>Yes, the resources that the player gets from the Terrans are enough. As for the Protoss, you should give them 10000 minerals and gas (so, in total, 30000 and 30000).
Now I understand, thank you.


Btw, not about map. How can you separate message? I can't understand, so I write everything in one message.

Thanks Andrea Rosa for the idea. Update:
1) Now Hunter Killers and Kukulza are yellow rescuable Zerg.
2) Added Protoss resources 20.000 ore\gas -> 30.000 ore\gas.
3) Fixed message "As you will, the Overmind" to "As you will, Overmind".
4) Renamed the "Protoss fleet" to "Expeditionary Force".
5) Removed 2 Zerg Mutalisk and added 2 Mutalisk Kukulza.
6) The Spawning Pool has been moved.

The link is the same.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on May 3 2020, 5:16 pm by C(a)HeK.

FYI having stuff like Enter Closest Bunker on preserve makes AI break apart (probably due to conflicting orders).

I like how you didn't even consider adding more workers to the player who sits on 4 res areas or improving the AI itself.

I've always used it that way, and I've never encountered any problem with the AI breaking apart. What I'm sure about is that the units will not stay in the Bunkers if Preserve Trigger is not used.


I don't know if he has any experience with AI editing. I, for myself, don't have it, so I can't suggest to other people something that I'm not capable of, because I couldn't give any further direction. Maybe you could take care of it?

i'm almost sure preserve trigger is needed with the " closest bunker"

Was never doing this. Some scripts (especially weaker ones like the one used in that map) tend to withdraw units from the bunkers, especially marines, to defend, and not replace them, though. But mixing scripts and "Preserve Triggers" is a bad idea in most any case, I think.

I think some different scripts may be in order for this one. I know this is a standalone map so writing scripts just for it may be unfeasible/impractical, but I guess something else can be found among the standard BW campaign scripts, or even the vanilla ones.

Of course it is. Using "Enter Closest Bunker" without "Preserve Trigger" is an exercise in futility. Sure, the infantry units will enter the Bunkers anyway, but they will abandon them at the first opportunity (and not enter anymore) if "Preserve Trigger" is not used.

In any case, the AI will still try to let out the units from the Bunkers every now and then, so another important thing to keep in mind is that the location used to identify the Bunker should be 2 tiles wider than the Bunker itself: since there is a lag of ~2 seconds before "Preserve Trigger" fires again (unless hypertriggers are used) if the location is not wide enough, then the units may walk past its boundaries and ignore the command.

Obviously, once the Bunkers are full, infantry units walking near them will not be affected by "Enter Closest Bunker", although the AI may still decide to send some men there for additional protection.

in my case I usually use another player for static defenses, I think the most viable

This is true in the case you use "Enter Closest Bunker" and "Preserve Trigger" in the same trigger in which the AI is executed. Keep them in two separate triggers (with the AI starting first and the Bunkers being loaded a couple of seconds later) and everything will be fine.

Oh yes, it is a valid workaround if you don't mind mixing different factions in the same base.

About the bunker and preserve trigger.

Terran AI tends to keep ghosts inside the bunkers for a long time until they start using ghosts as part of their attacks so you don't really need to use preserve trigger if you're going to have ghosts inside bunkers.

If you want to use preserve trigger on a bunker, make sure to have its own trigger box that runs differently from the actual AI that is running.

You can replace regular units with modified hero units without using preserve trigger.

You can use death counters to have units go inside the designated bunker every few seconds without conflicting AI scripts.

Considering you just said yourself that you have no experience with AI editing, you should not claim that "everything will be fine" when it will not. Sure, the game won't crash, but the AI will have giant problems with constructing/rebuilding anything and in the end the units will still attempt to bail out of bunker every now and then during an attack, losing DPS as a result. Both behaviours can be observed in any terran AIs in "The Alliance" campaign.
The actual solution to the problem is to use the new load_bunkers command, but one can also make separate marines/firebats with guard status disabled (based on heroes, for instance) so that AI doesn't attempt to contol them.

Thank you all for idea!

Update:
1) Now in the bunker are units heroes with parameters Marines and Firebats.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 4 2020, 4:17 am by C(a)HeK.

Update:
I added new gameplay from DK.