My next major project is, in fact, Rush 2. This won't be a sequel or anything like that, though. The namesake is only there to roughly indicate that this is still action/adventure, shooter-style gameplay. Beyond that, it'll feature a brand new story, characters, weapons, locales, gameplay features... you name it. No details yet, though. Except that I plan to start on the map after AG is finished.
Now, more important than the map itself, however, is the framework I'll be implementing it with: A thing I've been working on called UMS Mod. Since Starcraft modding has become prevalent enough lately to warrant semi-official adoption into formal mapping, I figure this ought to be something I should do.
UMS Mod is designed to enable map makers to have access to advanced trigger-based functions without all the ridiculous overhead and complexity involved. Moreover it'll allow a number of things current not possible with triggers in any practical way.
My plans for the mod are as follows:
- Keeps most of the normal functionality of Starcraft intact; ordinary UMS maps should run just fine under this.
- "Effects" Things such as pylon auras, attack animations, projectiles, sprites, sound-only units, etc. will now be available via. trigger-controllable units.
- Mobile Grid units A set of special units will be available in various sizes for use with Mobile Grids. These should not displace against existing air or ground units, remain consistently aligned each time, etc. Still researching exact unit sizes and properties to best achieve these effects, though.
- Proper Map Revealers Getting tired of those dumb Map Revealers? Well mine will come in a wide variety of sizes and allow things such as detection, ground-only vision, movability, etc. Everything that Map Revealers should have been from the start.
- AI Options There will be new AIs added to allow things like conning a factory to build a specific unit, prompting SCVs to repair a unit, etc. I'll have to do a lot of research on this field before I know what kinds of stuff I can do via. AIs. Rest assured, a lot of you guys will love this feature in particular!
- Blockers & Damagers Obvious, huh? A unit that ONLY blocks other units or ONLY hurts units that come near (no blocking). Perfect for bounds, RPGs, etc., or just mappers tired of trying to use DTs, Lurkers, etc. for the clumsy approximation of this.
- "Pointers" A new, powerful type of unit that will work as the backbone of UMS Mod. They have abilities such as:
- Invisibility and Super Speed They can move almost instantly to any point on the map and can never be seen by human players (but they're not cloaked, mind you... though I could allow that as an option). Utterly useful for targeting and selection systems.
- Auto-following These units can be set to automatically follow a given unit around without need of Center Location + Order Unit. A handy way to "mark" a given unit to allow it to be individually identifiable for trigger purposes (to a degree).
- Stackability These units are not bound by terrain and can be stacked over other units. They will not displace air units.
- Transports They can hold units inside like transports. This can have various uses, including allowing them to be marked individually themselves.
- Detectable Death Using the property of units (such as the Overmind) that leave behind another unit upon death, deaths can be detected by triggers. This will probably be another invisible unit, but won't have any functionality except to indicate the death position of a given pointer. Handy tool for VHP and other uses.
- Factory I'm still looking into this, but what I want to do is map the standard WASD keys (and maybe Q, E, R, F, and others) as hotkeys for buildable units (units that probably won't do anything except be detectable by triggers), and then set this unit to allow the player to be able to build them via. those hotkeys as if the unit were its own Factory. This is the best way I can think of to give the player readily available keyboard controls for map functions (in conjunction with Factory Select, of course).
- Invisibility and Super Speed They can move almost instantly to any point on the map and can never be seen by human players (but they're not cloaked, mind you... though I could allow that as an option). Utterly useful for targeting and selection systems.
That's only part of the list, too. I'll add more later. I'm open to requests, too.
Anyway, again, this all takes place after AG is done. I've already started on the mod, though, but for now I've nothing substantial to report yet except a lot of research and tidbits of implementations. I'll formalize progress on it separately soon.
Since Rush 2 will be running off of this mod, hopefully we'll get to see some truly epic gameplay out of it this time around without all the annoying Starcraft limits gumming up the works.
Feedback?
Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 13 2008, 6:37 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.
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