gastropedic cartography

[Alex06]

Hey, if you don't mind, I'd like the files so I could publish them to the US region...
And there's also SC2mapster.com. You can upload your SC2 maps there for others to download and play.

[gastrop0d]

Oh yeah, I forgot about sc2mapster! I'll put them up there soon.



I've started work on a custom game map. You pick a race, then you select one of four heroes for that race. There are up to 4 players, each player has buildings scattered across a quadrant of the map.

The buildings are invulnerable and start out as neutral-owned. You can capture buildings similar to how control points are captured in Team Fortress 2 (if you've played that...). Basically the more units you have next to the building when there are no units of whoever player owns it there, the faster you capture it.

Once you own a building you can use it to build units, research, or use abilities such as chrono boost. Units build at double-speed and don't cost food, but otherwise are identical to melee. You earn money when you kill enemies. Capturing and holding any Hatchery/Nexus/Orbital Command also gives you a stream of both mineral and vespene income.

When you own all of your quadrant's buildings (4 of them), you unlock the advanced units and upgrades for your race. This gives a huge advantage, so players are encouraged to spread their forces out across the whole area.

In the middle of the map is the Xel'Naga temple. From it spawns hostile creeps that attempt to capture any buildings not under their control. This is both a constant threat that you need to defend against, and a constant stream of income if you kill efficiently. You get a higher percentage of the unit value for killing a player unit compared to a creep unit.

Aside from that, there's numerous item shops and mercenary camps around the map. With these you can specialise your hero and forces. Mercenaries give powerful advantages when used right, but unlike regular units they use up supply. Since the only source of supply is controlling hatchery/nexus/orbital command, it's very hard to have more than just a handful of mercs.

The Xel'Naga temple begins with an invulnerable shield around it. To remove the shield, each of the 4 shrines around it must be destroyed. Each shrine relates to a player quadrant. Destroying the shrine corresponding to a quadrant causes the creep waves to become much, much harder in that area. Shrines are difficult to kill, however, due to the powerful hybrid guards. But if you kill your own shrine, you unlock more powerful creeps to attack you, which (if you can handle it) will give you a much higher income.

Or you can be truly evil and kill another player's shrine early in the game and put them on the back foot with the stronger creeps that they might not be ready for (we're talking battlecruisers, ultralisks, etc).

Whoever destroys the Xel'Naga temple immediately gains the ability to select a second hero. This provides a massive advantage for that player, provided he can nurse the new hero up to a high enough level. This is more difficult since destroying the temple means all the creep waves stop. This essentially puts the game in to end-game phase. The players have to try to thin the enemy forces down without losing too much of theirs. Every loss means money for the enemy.

If you own no buildings, you have 2 minutes to capture one. When you own buildings this 2 minute timer will count back up to its 2 minute max. So if you lose all your buildings and manage to grab one with 10 seconds left, and then you suddenly lose that building again, you'll only still have about 10 seconds on your timer, so you're probably screwed.

There are numerous types of item shops and mercenary camps. Each has their own unique stock. The types of shops/camps that spawn are random each time you play. This encourages scouting and diverse tactics.

Working title is "Relic of Bel'Shir". So far have only got the planning and layout done. No detailing, no triggers, data-edits, etc.

Okay! So I think that's about it for now.

[Ashoto]

This is amazing man!!! You thought of all this by yourself? O_O Awesome....

I think you got something good going on here. Seems a bit overwhelming at first, but I'm sure it could turn out managable and playable in the end

I like how the bases are not at the far corners and instead they are close to the center. From the map I can guess that you'll need to protect your base and the High-tech building from the creep at the same time. If the creep splits up in 2 that is (see map).

*An idea*
Why not switch the High-tech with the Low-tech building? You'll probably be going low-tech at first while fighting mostly creep. You won't need to have units at the back to controll the building there and the action will be focused mostly in the middle of the map. I can understand it the way it is right now though

I'm guessing the creep will come in waves? Or will it be a constant flow? Waves (with a timer) would give the players some time to recuparate (spelling...) and it wouldn't requite constantly having units left behind to guard your buildings.

P.S. I haven't played the last weeks. I'll go check sc2mapster for your maps.
Good luck with this crazy map!!!

[gastrop0d]

This is amazing man!!! You thought of all this by yourself? O_O Awesome....

I think you got something good going on here. Seems a bit overwhelming at first, but I'm sure it could turn out managable and playable in the end

I like how the bases are not at the far corners and instead they are close to the center. From the map I can guess that you'll need to protect your base and the High-tech building from the creep at the same time. If the creep splits up in 2 that is (see map).

*An idea*
Why not switch the High-tech with the Low-tech building? You'll probably be going low-tech at first while fighting mostly creep. You won't need to have units at the back to controll the building there and the action will be focused mostly in the middle of the map. I can understand it the way it is right now though

I'm guessing the creep will come in waves? Or will it be a constant flow? Waves (with a timer) would give the players some time to recuparate (spelling...) and it wouldn't requite constantly having units left behind to guard your buildings.

P.S. I haven't played the last weeks. I'll go check sc2mapster for your maps.
Good luck with this crazy map!!!

Cheers! Yeah the creeps come in waves. Not all the wave type march towards you from the centre though. I want to present a nice variety of challenges to the player, instead of just having a meat grinder. So for instance, theres roaches that move in burrowed to your low-tech and then unburrow, or marines drop in from orbital-drop pods, or zealots warp in from a warp prism, etc. Sometimes the waves are air-units too, so they fly over the middle cliff up to your low-tech. The point is you can't really leave your low-tech alone.

I'm focusing on getting 1 hero for each race fully implemented to begin with, so basic play testing can be done. So far I have Jim Raynor done for Terran, and Zeratul is well on the way for Protoss.

Raynor (with the big sniper rifle) is the kind of "mario" hero, in that he's the all-rounder. AoE damage, unit support, summoning and anti-hero abilities. He can slip into any of those roles as needed, but only to a moderate degree.

Zeratul is the classic cloak-and-dagger anti-hero. He is best used to constantly haunt the enemy hero and wait for opportunities to slip in and get a fast kill. All his abilities complement this role; cloaking, blinking, void prison and assassinate, a high damage spell to a single target.

The first Zerg hero I'm still deciding on. I'm thinking it will probably be Kerrigan, who will be a glass-cannon style hero. Tonnes of terrible, terrible damage, but fragile. Hard to decide, all the heroes look fun.

Oh and yeah, this is my own crazy idea. It's actually a SC2 version of a warcraft 3 map I made called Demonic Domination (mouthful XD), which originally was going to have ported starcraft 1 units that I made custom models for, but I ended up adapting it to the warcraft 3 universe because it was just so, so much easier.

Still haven't gotten around to uploading my damn maps! I WILL do it...

[gastrop0d]

Okaaaay... new 1v1 map! This one's called Substation.



The substation connects the two players directly, and provides immediate access to the high-yield expansions, but the flank routes either side of the map allow for deadly harrassment and counter-attack forces to strike. Access to the high-yield expansions from the flanks can be gained by destroying the rocks. The side routes also have watchtowers, which assist forces flanking the middle.

Published on SEA/ANZ region.

I've also uploaded all my maps to sc2mapster (finally). You can find them all here.

If you play any matches on my maps, upload a replay!

Last thing, work on Relics of Bel'Shir is slowly coming along. Still working on heroes and basic mechanics.