Name it the same thing as another building. Like if you have something for like "house" for example...to make variety? idk wut the spore would be in a ship RPG tho.

Madzombie - I mean what function could it serve on the ship?


Well that wouldn't be very fun, would it? lol

I have an idea: You know how the building that gives you extra experience AND upgrades your vHP? Well we could make it so that the supply depot/spore colony/whatever gives you extra exp and the science facility just upgrades your vHP. How does that sound?

I think we should write a new list entirely. I noticed a few things that need addressing, like the Terrans getting weapon upgrades before the other races, how to handle Spire>Greater Spire, if we're using ICCs, etc. Also, this way, we can discuss the list as we're writing it, which would be a big help for balance and concepting. Now, we'll probably end up keeping most of our existing lists, so it won't be "ZOMG I HAVE TO INVENT OVER 9000 THINGIES!".

And btw, I think we could use Terran add-ons for something. The ComSat Station, at least, would be very easy to use for either it's original function or for a spell. (eg. "Cast Scanner Sweep to fire photon bomb.")

Great idea. I agree. Let's just try to stow the old list in the back of our minds and take it kind of slow, two or three buildings at a time and kind of treat it like a little forum game, ok? Just post at least once a day if you can and it will flow just fine.

Flexible Rules of the game: We'll go through all the buildings for each race one at a time in order. If you have any ideas for buildings we have not covered yet, post them and you might not get a reply right away but your post will be mentioned once we get to the building. This will mainly be between me and Tazz on this thread but anyone can butt in at any time if they like and you can post regularly in addition to me and Tazz if you like, that would be really good for the game actually if we had another couple people in on this. If we want to go back to something, we can put the game on hold while we do.

Sounds like a good set of rules for the game if you think this is a good way to go about it? Or would you rather it went a lot faster and we just compared lists or something? I'm cool either way, I just thought that a game might be kind of fun.

First, let me verify something: I was under the impression that the zerg tech tree is much different than the protoss and terran trees. The protoss and terran start out with every prerequisite building. The only limitation they have on building higher-tech buildings is that they require a significantly higher amount of minerals than lower buildings like Missile Turrets and Small Armors, therefore it is easier to build them later in the game when you are getting more experience (and thus minerals) for harder guys. However, the zerg is a little different, they require higher and higher hives to get more expensive stuff. Do you think this is good? I'm not too attached to it although I do like it.

Addons might be a good idea, that would make lifting off buildings more interesting. I like them as long as we can come up with enough good ideas for them.

Is this all cool with you Tazz (and anyone else who is interested)?

I think you guys are going --overboarrrddd- on the complexity with every single building doing something. How can you manage to have in-game 'what building does what' explanation interface that isn't confusing to use/textspammy?

Perhaps you should limit to 5-8 per civ, if even that many.

I think you are right. The addons might be a bit much too complicated here. Other than that I'd say that it's OK, though. It gives you all your choices when you press the build buttons on the SCV, which would make it pretty user-friendly. I'd say if we do use addons, they should be addon abilities for the building, like increased energy for special or something (that wouldn't actually work). We can brainstorm ideas later.

I was thinking that the only description would be a brief one when you build the building. Example: Lift to deploy bomb or Create goliath to use special. Burrow zergling to increase energy to full. So a huge part of the map would be experimenting, which would be fun, wouldn't it?

What if you build something useless to the current situation because you had no idea what the building did?

No building should be useless in any situation except extras of the essentials: supply depot, armory and bunker for terran, and the rest of the races follow suit. There will be a sentence that appears when you build those buildings that says that you only want to have what you need. Not to mention that an extra building will draw fire away from your other buildings slightly. Makes sense, right?

Tazz, what do you think of my post 3 posts ago?

Because, then the extractor retains its colour, and is un-mine-able.

But giving all units? o.O

And I had three ideas:

1. If we change the Factory to Small Armor, then we can make it so that the Machine Shop makes all Factories invulnerable. The result is that building a Factory with an attached Machine Shop is equivilant to a Large Armor. (We can also use constructing factory units to set off other defensive abilities, eg. temporary invulnerability?)

2. Make the CC be the "hero" building. Then, set it so that Scanner Sweep sets off the "Signature Skill". The end result is that the Factory's functions are transfered to the ComSat. This stops the player from getting sig. skill before they upgrade to hero, which might be good or bad, depending on what you think. (We could also reverse it so that CC = Enable Sig. Skill [build SCV to activate] and ComSat = "hero", if you like that better.)

3. Transfer the CC's function (create two Scourge when lifted) to the Science Facility. Then, set it so that three Scourges are spawned if the player has a Covert Ops, and four spawn if the player has a Physics Lab.

Also, what's the point of making an extra Probe as the Toss? Just realized that.

(And I think we can use the Infested Command Center for something. And there's probably a better use for the Nydus Canal and Greater Spire. [Change it so that morphing Scourges at your Hatchery sets off the Skill, maybe?])

Looks like a cool map =O.. .Reminds me of Space Pirates RPG... XD

The only problem I see is switching from the ship to the ship's picture.. but that should be fine....

Hooray for mediocre compliment!!
(But seriously, this map looks fun )

Edit dangit I can't post everything I want to post, stupid fatal error. I'll do it in parts

@ Tazz

1. Great idea, making the machine shop simply as a large armor. I so agree.

2. How about instead, we make the CC the signiture skill building (the one that enables Yamato and things) and you can have the option to build a Scanner Sweep building. What the Scanner Sweep building will do is that if you use it, it will make your unit energy go up to 100% (or slightly less in the wraith's case). We already had planned to do something like this, but have an overlord off to the side that you drop units from or something to make this happen. I think this is a better use for the awesome Scanner Sweep addon. Another thing, the addon has vEnergy, and for every command center and/or scanner sweep building you have, the scanner sweep gets energy faster. The effects are cumulative, so if you have like 5 command centers with 5 sweep buildings you can cast Yamato quite a lot. How do you like this?

3. Excellent idea, I agree with that a lot. We could even make it so that the lab/covert ops doesn't disappear when you lift off so you can build there for future torpedos. That's awesome.

Yeah, damn, you're right, the extra probe is totally useless. Sorry
Maybe the ICC could be a secret building? Unless you had something in mind for it? How would it be created?
You're right that it would be fine to morph scourges from the hatchery for the special. Just rename the thing "Morph Scourge 4 Special." or "Morph Muta 4 Special" if the former takes up too much space.
If you can think of something better for the Nydus Canal, please. I'll try to think of ideas in my free time (haha).
Also, for the damage spreader, how would, instead of making a guardian, making a mutalisk that does 1/2 the damage sound? And how would multiple damage spreaders work?

@ Urine
Haha thank you, I appreciate the encouragement

Post has been edited 8 time(s), last time on Oct 24 2008, 10:55 pm by madroc.

Don't look at me when the map turns out too complicated, btw.

It's definitely looking that way.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 24 2008, 11:18 pm by Impeached.

Impeached, your comments have been duly noted. It will serve no purpose to keep telling us to make the map less complicated.

I was thinking of moving a civ or something to spawn a flying ICC over the base, so the player can land it wherever he/she wants. I don't think using it as a secret building would be a good idea.

I agree with your idea for the CC. Maybe we could do something similar with the Nuclear Silo? Eg. build nuke (Mineral loss detection or something) to instantly raise the vEnergy a little bit?

We'll need to do some building juggling now, tho...

Hmm, good idea on the ICC. Maybe if you make a queen from the hatchery it makes an ICC? Or something... I think it would be cool if maybe something made a couple of ICCs and they would be the building that you would have to kill to create several saprolings at your unit? They kind of look like a sac in my opinion. I don't think we should rule out the possibility of making it a secret building, not something thats game-changing, but maybe just a small good benefit or something. Although if we can find a good use for the ICC, then, by all means, yeah let's do it.

As for the regular CC, how would we make it raise the energy just a little bit? Remember that we're using vvEnergy and not vEnergy. Unless we set the energy to 50%, which would sometimes lower the person's energy, which wouldn't make sense. I'm drawing a blank on what the Nuke Silo could be. Remember that we could just not use it. Maybe I'll get an idea for it later. You got any ideas?

I'll edit in some more things in a second, we don't want to get any fatal errors, now.

I decided to just double post instead of hassling with fatal errors.

One issue I'd like to bring up is that I am pretty strongly of the opinion that we should build upon the player's already conceived ideas, like Pavlov's dog kind of thing. What I mean is that generally (I'll assume that I am the player of this map), if every building is available to me (some might cost more than others) but I don't know what any building does yet, I would guess as the player (perhaps subconsciously) that:
1. The command center is basic, kind of necessary building that I will probably experiment with before most other buildings.
2. The supply depot is a similar building as the command center that I will probably experiment with soon after I experiment with the command center.
3. The barracks is a basic, necessary building that will probably improve my offense. I'll probably build it very soon in my experimentation.
4. The Engineering Bay is a basic, relatively unnecessary building that might have some upgrades for my ship. I'll build it probably after the factory some time.
5. The missile turret is a kind of basic, relatively unnecessary building that will probably improve my offense, but is quite unnecessary and I'll probably experiment with it after the factory.

Do you understand what I'm getting at? I'm saying that we should build on those and make it so that the command center is relatively useful (so probably not lightspeed or something like that) and make it so that the barracks is kind of offensive.

Another thing is that I think that, to make it easier on the player, we should make it so that the buildings increase in cost as you get into the more and more complicated buildings, so CC would be a cheaper one and Science Facility would be a more expensive one. Again, I just want to build on the players' already conceived ideas.

Do you agree?

I'm triple posting to avoid any fatal 45 second errors... and to organize my posts.

Basically what I want to do in this post is use the theory in my above post to create an example list of the terran building functions.
So.. Please sit down and read this soon, when you get the chance, it's not too long:

Command Center: Lift to create two scourges. Basically this makes it pretty simple, effective and cheap, which fits the profile of the conceived command center in my opinion.
----Comsat Station: If this is connected to the command center, 3 scourges are created instead of two. Unfortunately scanner sweep would be disabled. I really think that it's worth sacrificing that useful ability so that we can build on the players' preconceived ideas.
----Nuclear Silo: If this is connected to a command center, 4 scourges are created instead of two when the command center is lifted. Again unfortunately the useful nuclear bomb ability would be disabled
Supply Depot - I'm thinking that this should be the guns instead of the armory because of my above post. That would kind of be suck because armory does convey weapons, but I really think it's a little better.
Refinery - We already decided this would be engine.
Barracks - Enable Feat; create marine to increase energy to full (that is, if you have enough gas saved up). This builds on the player's preconceived idea that the barracks is an offensive basic building. It would be so much cooler to have the feat be the command center so we could use the comsat station so that instead of using gas for saved up energy (potions?), we could use comsat energy, but then I realized that the other two races don't have the energy thing, so they would have to use gas. Why use gas for two races and not the other, ya know?
Academy - Enable Light Speed. This builds on the preconceived idea that the academy is pretty useless and doesn't matter all that much, so less players would build that building sooner. I'd say that lightspeed is one of the less needed abilities, wouldn't you?
Bunker - Cockpit - We already decided this. I really like the idea that you can't drive your ship unless you are in the cockpit.
Turret - Gun; for every turret you have, every 6 seconds a marine appears underneath you to attack once. This builds upon the preconceived idea that the missile turret is kind of an unnecessary building, but could be good to supplement you. Makes kind of sense?
Engineering Bay - Small Armor - We talked about making a building that was a small armor with an addon that would basically make it a large armor, right? Well, I theorize that it would make more sense to the player if there was a basic armor on the basic page of the SCV and a more advance armor that you build later on the advanced page of the SCV. So hopefully they would build it in order. Does that make sense? I might be completely boggles about everything I'm saying right now, I do that sometimes. But it also builds upon the preconceived idea that the Engineering Bay is not really an offensive building, it just kind of stays in your base and is a prereq for the turret, at least that's what I sort of always thought of it as.
Factory - Enable Skill - create a goliath? to trigger your crazy SFX skill. This builds upon the preconceived idea that the factory is basically an offensive building, and also that it is a similar idea to the barracks.
----Machine Shop - This might cost about half as much as the factory and would simply act as an extra factory, just taking up less space and less minerals, so if you get 2 zerg supply for your special for every factory you have every 2 seconds, you would also get 2 zerg supply for each machine shop you have every 2 seconds.
Starport - Exp upgrade - for each of these you have, you get 5% for exp per kill for more buildings and things. Also I'm thinking that you could lift these if you wanted, so a goal of an experienced player of BASW might be to get a lot of starports. This builds upon the preconceived idea that a starport is a more advanced building.
----Control Tower - this would be exactly the same thing as a starport, except 1. it has to be connected to a starport to work, 2. it costs less minerals and 3. it takes a little less space.
Armory - I don't know, but hopefully something kind of offensive
Science Facility - vHP upgrade - only one of these works at a time and it has to be on the ground to work. (you'd have to tell them with a display message trigger somehow). This builds upon the preconceived idea that the science facility is a more advanced building.
----Covert Ops - I don't know, perhaps something small that has nothing to do with the science facility at all, like you get an invincible lowish damage firebat (that you can upgrade) to do your bidding (maybe not that, maybe though, it's not a bad idea I think)
----Physics Lab - diddo, something like that. Also you could only have one of either of these working at a time since you only have one working science facility (we'd have to lift extra science facilities and give them to neutral until the current one dies or something).

So what do you think about this idea? Do you think that it would make it so that the player feels more in understanding with the game or am I bonkers tonight? I ate at the mexican restaurant for dinner so it is possible
One last note - With this list that I just posted, the buildings' mineral costs would be proportional to the costs in regular melee starcraft.

I've only said it twice.

I disagree, madroc. I don't think the players will get confused. (We could give them a warning message, if you want.)

EDIT: I also think we should change the Protoss firing mechanism to the Cybernetics Core and the Zerg engine to the Spire. The reason is that then all the players gain access to weapons upgrades at the same time.

Yeah, you're probably right. Basically what I was worried about what was that they would get frustrated because they just wasted a crap load of money on a vHP upgrade. But really the vHP upgrade is the only one that they would be p'od about doing in the beginning. Thus I really think that the vHP upgrade should be the Science Facility. Is that too much to ask? And do you understand where I'm coming from? I don't think that the Sci Facility should be a torpedo thing because the torpedo thing should be a more early game building. Other than that, I think I'd be ok with any other building being anything (for terran).

I disagree that it would be a really good thing that all the players would get their upgrades at the same time. I, however, agree that the cybernetics core would be a better weapons thing anyways, but I disagree about the spire being the firing mechanism. For one, they cant build the spire until they have a lair, so you'd have to give them a lair, which would defeat the purpose of making it so that the zerg has to work up the tech tree. For two, the fact that the spire can turn into a greater spire at the touch of a button is valuable, just like the the scanner sweep has that valuable ability. I'm not sure what it could do yet, but I think it would be good for triggering the special (morph into a greater spire to trigger special, and then it turns back into a regular spire).

I just want to make sure, this is important, when you use scanner sweep, does p12 own it or does the player who cast it own it?

Also, if we use the command center for the feat and then the scanner sweep for making the character's energy to go up to full (or other things for units that do not have energy), we could then use vEnergy for the scanner station instead of having the defiler supply method (see first page in case you forgot). If we did this, which I think is a tremendous idea, how would we do it for the other races? I'd rather not have that kind of system for just one race and then have the defiler system for the other two races.

Have any other ideas for buildings? I'm very busy this next week so don't expect much out of me I can't wait til school is over so I can actually do things I want to do

How's the assignment going?