Cruiser Command

So, I've been starting to implement tiered upgrades in the beta now as a response to scrypso's upgrade thread. I got some mixed feedback on it and we spent hours in the Skype chat discussing ways to improve it. What we came up with is a huge change in how it currently works and I'm interested to see how it impacts Cruiser Command. I'm also interested in hearing what you guys have to say, so do tell. This is how it works:

Each upgrade that currently exists is placed in a specific tier from 0 to 4. The more late game the upgrade is, the higher the tier is. Tier 0 upgrades can be researched directly without any requirements, just like they are now. For example, you might be able to research two levels of small ship speed on tier 0. Let's say Miner scan and mining laser level 1-2 are tier 1.

In addition to these general upgrades, there are specific tier upgrades. These are similar to the ones currently implemented in the beta. There are three branches: Offensive, Balanced and Economy. Each branch has a tier upgrade that grants some nice bonuses (Economy branch upgrades gives some mining boosts and similar) and each branch also unlocks ALL general tier upgrades. In other words, if I want to upgrade miner scan (tier 1), I have to reach tier 1 with ANY branch. Researching the tier 1 specific upgrade (ANY branch. Offensive, balanced or economy) will unlock ALL general tier 1 upgrades. Same for tier 2 and so on.

Here's a nice picture that I made to show you how it works:


The upgrades written in between the tiers are general upgrades. Again, these are NOT locked to a specific branch. As long as you've reached a tier with one of the branches, you can get all general upgrades up to that tier.

Why would we want to do something like this?
I'm glad you(I) asked! There are many reasons:

* It creates different openings. The difference between an economy opening and an offensive opening is very clear and obvious.
* It creates interesting choices. You want to go down the tiers to reach the late game upgrades, but going deep in one branch will leave you vulnerable to a player who techs in several branches at once.
* It creates a natural way to talk and measure research. Comparing research after a finished game is a much more interesting discussion. Instead of: "Well... we had engine boost and... maybe 5 levels in fusion core?" you get discussions like: "Well, we went for a deep balance build so when we reached tier 4 in the balance branch we attacked. We knew you were going for a wider build since we noticed you researched tier 1 in both economy and offensive so you would have a harder time against us if we attacked while we had the tech advantage."

I like it a lot.

My only concern is the upgrade tree might be layed out hard to follow. For example, with the original DOTA, the items were laid out sort of haphazardly, and it was sort of tricky figuring out where the dependancies for recipes were sold. That was fixed in all the DOTA clones like HoN and LoL because the programmers could change the interface whichever way they wanted and werent restricted to the constraints of the game engine, but I understand you have constraints to work within due to the limitations of the starcraft 2 engine.

I guess what I am saying is it should be relatively easy for newbies to grasp. But otherwise, it sounds great

bbot wrote:I like it a lot.

My only concern is the upgrade tree might be layed out hard to follow. For example, with the original DOTA, the items were laid out sort of haphazardly, and it was sort of tricky figuring out where the dependancies for recipes were sold. That was fixed in all the DOTA clones like HoN and LoL because the programmers could change the interface whichever way they wanted and werent restricted to the constraints of the game engine, but I understand you have constraints to work within due to the limitations of the starcraft 2 engine.

I guess what I am saying is it should be relatively easy for newbies to grasp. But otherwise, it sounds great

There's no real 'change' to the upgrades tree. It's literally just adding the 3 buttons that have already been put in the beta (Econ, Balance, and Offensive) and just having those upgrade the tiers. Following that, it's just a matter of establishing requirements on the upgrades -- I.E. 'Mining Laser 3' might have 'Tier 2 in any Branch' necessary. At that point, the 3 Tier Upgrades are already readily and obviously available in the main upgrade section.

I will be editing in a few ideas shortly for various upgrades attached to the branch tiers.

EDIT:

Economy Tier 1
As exists, with a weaker bonus to mining laser.

Economy Tier 2
Magnetized Grinder - Attempting to chomp an object out of range, instead of doing nothing, exerts a pull on the object. Reduces the cooldown of Chomp. Cannot exert force upon a ship that is too large to chomp.
Nuclear Engine - Small ship engines no longer drain energy based upon throttle percentage.
Titanium Casing - Quadruples the health of mineral packets sent back by miners.

Economy Tier 3
Factory - Small ships cost 80% of their original pricing.
Transfer Cartridge - Doubles the energy provided via Power Transfer from the science console.
Dynamic Mining Lens - Allows the mining laser to be utilized while moving.

Economy Tier 4
Core Entropy Film - Core degeneration rate is reduced to 66%.
Hanger Factory - Ship reconstruction rate is reduced by 25%.
Asteroid Anomaly Detector - Creates a ping whenever a new asteroid field is formed.



Balance Tier 1
As exists, with a weaker bonus to small ship speed.

Balance Tier 2
Rear Thruster - Unlocks the rear thruster ability (hotkeyed X) which allows the wraith to thrust backwards. (Cut throttle moved to Z.) Does not benefit from the ‘Side Thruster Efficiency’ bonus from Tier 1.
Efficiency Minelaying - Halves the cooldown of the Minelayer's mine related abilities.
Superconductive Wiring - Halves the cooldown on the Increase/Decrease Engines/Weapons/Shields abilities on the Power Console.

Balance Tier 3
Standardized Shield Generator - Grants all small ships a standard 50 shields. Additionally grants them a bonus to shield regeneration equal to 0.5% of their maximum shields.
Enhanced Combustion - Increase small ship acceleration (and deceleration) by 25%.
Afterburner - Unlocks the Afterburner ability on the Corvette. Forces maxed throttle and disables weapons while active. Drains 75 energy per second while doubling the Corvette's movement speed until energy has been depleted. Cannot be disabled once activated.

Balance Tier 4
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Offense Tier 1
As exists, with a waeker bonus to wraith and corvette damage.

Offense Tier 2
Chameleon Rig - Causes mines set by the minelayer to go invisible 5 seconds after being deployed.

Offense Tier 3
Cloaking Device - Allows the wraith to activate a cloaking device. 5 seconds after activation (at a cost of 100), it will thereon drain 25 energy per second until deactivated or until energy runs out. Upon firing a laser, EMP, or side thruster, the cloaking device will automatically disengage.

Offense Tier 4
Spearhead Engine - Alters the Engine Boost upgrade into the Ramming Boost upgrade. Upon coliding with an opposing battlecruiser with Ramming Boost active (AKA 'cause a collision effect'), crew members upon the opposing ship are knocked out for two seconds, disconnecting them from their consoles. This effect will continue to occur each time damage is applied throughout the Ramming Boost. (Would require drones to automatically attempt to reconnect after being disconnected.)

Why not just put all the...supposed "T2 upgrades" into a new T2 upgrades console? would create less confusion as "Oh, that stuff is advanced, of course will need more upgrades before we can get those"

DinoChicken wrote:Why not just put all the...supposed "T2 upgrades" into a new T2 upgrades console? would create less confusion as "Oh, that stuff is advanced, of course will need more upgrades before we can get those"

Wouldnt work, because you would be able to upgrade several things at once

Ignoring that...

Edited in some ideas into an earlier post. Will be expanding upon it as ideas come to mind and as I get more information about plans for weapons and shields.

DinoChicken wrote:Why not just put all the...supposed "T2 upgrades" into a new T2 upgrades console? would create less confusion as "Oh, that stuff is advanced, of course will need more upgrades before we can get those"

Because with 4 tiers, you'd have 4 different consoles. I think it's going to be easier to understand than you think. I'm considering making a quick demo in the editor, taking some pictures and putting them here, to show how it would look.

I did an example of what it could look like: http://imgur.com/a/zMewJ

oh, what an odd way to do upgrades, but at least you have to have a level of balance when upgrading, instead of bursting 1 upgrade over everything else

Tossed in a few more ideas into the already existing list eariler on.

Primarily added to Economy, since I'm still not sure as to what we intend to do with Weapons/Shields.