Malta II - (3 Player FFA Map)

posted on December 6th, 2009, 8:17 pm

That pretty much nails down my concerns too  - as well as my thoughts of where the map should end up

posted on December 6th, 2009, 8:48 pm

Maybe later on tonight I can test my concerns with you.  The center moons are still pretty close to one another, and in my experience, while you're fighting for a center that everybody needs (except maybe the klingons.  They could get by on 1 for a while ), one will quickly win in the very early stages, which will help ensure their victory.  Again, the spacing on your expansions are good enough to allow people to attack them and stave off fleet building.  I think it would be better to see the middle as a bonus.

Also, that configuration really screws the dominion over.  They work best with a moon pair so that they can have a supply station in the middle, with 1 miner at the dilithium moon and one at the tri moon.  You can do that at your base, but you can't at your second one.  So now one of your expansion moons, either the dilithium moon or the tritanium moon in the center, must be completely dedicated to supplies.  Since it would be foolish to do it at the di moon, you'll need to do it at the tri moon....were all the action is.  This puts one race at a severe disadvantage to the others who don't require a supply station.  First strike also has the same problem for the Dominion if they're in the center, but there you have one extra (3 total) dilithium moons that are close by that can make things ok.  Plus the players have team mates who can help guard the tritanium moons in the center, etc.

More testing is needed, me thinks.  But right now I would say no.  And the only reason I'm being hard on you is because the map is really good.  I had fun playing on it.  If a bunch of us test some more, and it gets perfected for all the races, I would say we should petition Optec and Doca to put it in with the regular maps.

  Ah excellent!
 
  Well I'm more than excited to do more testing and am honored that you and Dom specifically have taken such extra steps to help me make it better. 

  - I agree completely about the Dominion issue.  Perhaps having a full exp on the Rim at each point can fix that.  More space will be needed but I'm sure something can be worked out.  Perhaps a better arrangement of the moons themselves in the rim pairs.

  -  I did want the middle to be a bonus at first, but then realized that due to the size it would create pathing errors to have it centered as you helpfully found out.  I work at 1 for a few hours than again at 6 for a few hours (Western Pacific Time) but I'll be back tonight and we'll play around!

  - Let's get it right! 

posted on December 6th, 2009, 9:24 pm

What I think is you could trim a little off the ring to give enough space for both moons at the expansions, and then keep the center the way it is, with the slightly spread out moons as a bonus.

posted on December 6th, 2009, 9:28 pm

I have an idea which might work... perhaps stick a very small mutara nebula on each center moon so that you can't tell if they are being mined, or at least can't target miners directly immediately... though that might carry it's own problems against the Borg  . I suppose if the nebulae are small enough, you shouldn't even be able to place any bigish (larger than a Scube/Adaptor) Borg vessels in their (though I'm not sure you can make the nebulae small enough either).

posted on December 6th, 2009, 11:17 pm

Cool idea, Dom but the nebs only come in large and extra-large sizes.  The Tetryon's that you can see in the map are the smallest size possible, and even if you rotate them onto their side they still cover the same area.  The Greens nebs present are the larger size.  I've always wanted to include Mutaras and the safe Blue Nebs in some strategic sense, but I fear they are a poor choice for a small map as Mal has shown they are easily exploitable by Borg.  A shame for sure

  So Mal you suggest keeping the moons in the center as a pair of each type or in a triangle?
 
  I can even make a square out of 4 moons.  I'm that talented

posted on December 6th, 2009, 11:25 pm

So long as you give the expansion a pair of moons, you can do whatever you like with the middle.  I like the triangle because it's not cluttered.  

posted on December 6th, 2009, 11:39 pm

Aye, I'm not a big fan of uneven pairs of moons - it tends to accentuate the different uses that each faction has for each resource, as well as seriously damage the capability of each faction to tech up equally. For instance, Klingons don't need all that much tritanium (they can survive on one moon for the most part) until they start sucking up supplies with the bigger ships and if they decide to start doing their super expensive researches. Dominion on the other hand needs two pairs of moons, if for just the reason that they need one dedicated absolutely to supply manufacture. Federation definitely needs even pairs of moons since its tech tree is really quite short, and you can always find a use for that extra tritanium.

[Boggz]

posted on December 6th, 2009, 11:41 pm

Last edited by Boggz on December 6th, 2009, 11:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ah gentlemen ...

  How good of you both to be here at this moment in time.

  I took those suggestions into account and revised it ever so slightly.  On top of that - I changed to dimensions to 12000 x 12000 from 10k and it just kind of let everything breathe out a bit.  The corridors are more easily traversable, the nebulae will be less of a necessity and more of a bonus, and the moon pairs (that's right, pairs ) now have ample room for any race.

  On top of that, the little breathing room gave each base more room to place buildings.  I'll finish the mini and throw it up in one second.

EDIT:  Oh, and what I'd like to test is whether or not a Borg vessel can survive in a Mutara layered with a Tetryon.  A Sphere regenerating would definitely be able to do so but at a lower rate.  If the Tetryon damages it at a rate decent enough then I feel it might make up for the fact that it can hide in it.  That was also a vessel trying to escape that is non-borg is immediately hidden from view but cannot stay long.  All these options make for more interesting gameplay!  Cause let's face it ... there's not real tactical reason to fly through a damaging nebula other than that it might cause opponents to go around.

posted on December 6th, 2009, 11:51 pm

I like it, gold star for Boggz.  Did you test to see the borg are ok at the expansions?  They should be if you put the mining nodes on the outside, I think.  Doesn't look like I can test tonight.  It's taking longer than I thought to work on things.

posted on December 6th, 2009, 11:54 pm

Yeah no problem.  I think the Borg resource nodes should be fine (pain in the ass even when you have oodles of space).  We'll find a time to test it.  Once everything was loosened up by increasing the size things just seemed to fall into place.  Also now you won't ALWAYS run smack into another player when going ANYWHERE