Welcome to The Fray [1v1]

posted on February 23rd, 2012, 4:37 pm

I've had the idea for this map in my head for a while now, and a few days ago I finally put it down.  I do expect some balance issues but the overall layout seems to work just fine.

So, without further ado, I give you The Fray, a new 1v1 map!



Ge.tt | Tryptic's Fleet-Ops Maps

Players start close to each other in the bottom left corner.  The goal is to force a decision: do you expand early or build up on one base to attack your opponent's expansion?  I'm a bit concerned about Fed turret rushes so these will need to be tested.

Changes under consideration
-move or remove the blue nebula lines blocking the back Di moons
-remove the small blue nebula patch to make it harder to turret off the center
-move the home moons further apart so they always require 2 refineries
-do the same with the expansion moons.  These 2 moon changes would make it harder to fast-expand, as fast-expanding seems to be more appealing right now than raiding.

posted on February 23rd, 2012, 4:46 pm

There is also the problem of using artillery ranged weapons from within your base or very close to it on your enemy something you refused to acknowledge yesterday.

posted on February 23rd, 2012, 6:12 pm

Wow. I like how different the design is. I hope that being so close to your enemy is not a problem for players. Since your expansions are the same or more distant than your opponent I wonder how often players will respond to attacks with a counter attack rather than moving to defend. I hope to see some games on it.

One issue that comes to mind - is it possible for a Borg player to transwarp to the areas along the bottom and left? I could see a situation where a player decides that instead of saying GG, they transwarp a probe over and cannot be touched. If I were facing some who did that I would consider myself the victor and any observers could backup the claim. However, some players may find that sort of thing to be a bigger annoyance. Making the asteroid walls thick enough to out range sensors/transwarp would just end any future problems.

posted on February 23rd, 2012, 6:18 pm

It's a neat map, but I highly recommend to make and agreement with your opponent that neither of you does yard cheese or turret rush, or its gonna be very frusrtating to play. Also this kinda layout favors borg tremendously, try to avoid playing borg on this one. (unless you do borg vs borg)

posted on February 23rd, 2012, 8:02 pm

Also this kinda layout favors borg tremendously, try to avoid playing borg on this one. (unless you do borg vs borg)

May be it could be changed from a standard-map into a scenario (Megadroid's MM may be?). The players could be 'motivated' to play Borg by default

posted on February 23rd, 2012, 8:05 pm

@MrXT: yesterday you built a Veqlaragh, but were unable to use it effectively on the enemy base because you were fighting at your expansion.  I considered this a good sign, but as I said it needs more testing.  You could be right.

@Derentis: the empty spaces are entirely blocked off, or feds could use warpins there.  I might add more blocking behind the back Di moons as well.

@Elim there are some green nebs to use against the borg, as I said I'm thinking about removing some blue if it becomes a problem.  Don't judge it until you play it.

Also, regarding turret rushes they could be a problem but I would rather SEE it being a problem so I know how to fix it.  Yesterday Tiger tried out a HWP rush for me to watch, and it was repelled quite successfully but his opponent was dominion.  Romulans might have had trouble with that one.

I'll be on whenever I can to test and see if strats are overpowered.  For now, an agreement to not turret-rush is one way around it.

[Elim]

posted on February 23rd, 2012, 8:42 pm

Last edited by Elim on February 23rd, 2012, 8:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

@Elim there are some green nebs to use against the borg, as I said I'm thinking about removing some blue if it becomes a problem.  Don't judge it until you play it.

I played the map dude (I have also experienced mr. Tiger's HWP rush)... what do u think i'm just randomly trolling? Yes, I do that sometimes, but when I do, I'm always trying to make it obvious... this time I was just trying to be constructive man.   :crybaby:

I was thinking a lot about making a new 1v1 map, also thinking about posting my sketches about that, but it would be far too long for a post.

My general concern about every map on you start close to your opponent and expand away from him (like on this map) makes standard agressive borg builds insanely powerful, you will never be able to leave your base aginst a reasonable borg opponent on this map.

The cheeses that can be problem (just a few popping out of my head):

- Dominion small yard rush close to opponents main base moon, and then producing B-8s pretty much aginst any race
- same thing with S-2s

- Mayson fed phaser turret rushes that you can even reinfore with building the first antares yard close to thier base moons, since fed constructors are silly fast, aginst:    romulans, borg

- the already mentioned HWP rush aginst romulans, and dominion, unless they are starting with very quick double yard bugspam, or feds going for saber/canevaral start

I guess klingons are generally quite safe if they scout well, they can always pop some ktingas, and kill the constructor, but it still might be costly (for example taking out a dominion constructor might be paying off too much for the dominion, even if it gets killed, they can just always send a constructor to force some ktingas, and loosing one constructor won't really hurt them)

posted on February 23rd, 2012, 9:16 pm

Very neat way to break the mold! 

  May I suggest you take a look at a Starcraft 2 map called Scrap Station?

  Granted, the doodads available are different, but it might give you some ideas on how to evolve your "side-by-side" layout.  If I were you I would consider blocking off the bottom-left-most opening between bases and have the first "forward" opening by a thin line of damaging blue nebula.

posted on February 23rd, 2012, 9:25 pm

Ah.  In that case, I'm sorry.  :blush: When you used the word "layout" I assumed you were just going based on the minimap.  Normally I can never get people to test my maps without bugging them, so I wasn't expecting it to be tested on its own...

I see your point about the super-fast borg ships.  I thought you were referring to the blue nebs.

One thing that has been proposed, and that I'm seriously considering would be to bring the back Di moon closer to the main base, so that in extreme cases where your home Di moon is being harassed you can just up and go take your expansion plus the extra Di and continue production as normal.

Now that I think about it, it really would be hard to counter that Borg problem.  Because if I just move the starbases further away, scube rush will still be viable.  On the other hand, the home moons are pretty close to the starbase making it hard to harass with short range ships... AHHHH the only answer I can come up with is that I need to watch it being done before I'll know what to do.

@RedEyedRaven yeah, I'm planning to make a 3-player variant where the third player is in the top right, probably borg and the bottom two are on a team against him

@Boggz I'll go check it out, thanks!  Originally the inspiration for this map was Lost Temple, but obviously it underwent a lot of modifications.

posted on February 23rd, 2012, 11:12 pm

@MrXT: yesterday you built a Veqlaragh, but were unable to use it effectively on the enemy base because you were fighting at your expansion.  I considered this a good sign, but as I said it needs more testing.  You could be right.

@Derentis: the empty spaces are entirely blocked off, or feds could use warpins there.  I might add more blocking behind the back Di moons as well.

@Elim there are some green nebs to use against the borg, as I said I'm thinking about removing some blue if it becomes a problem.  Don't judge it until you play it.

Also, regarding turret rushes they could be a problem but I would rather SEE it being a problem so I know how to fix it.  Yesterday Tiger tried out a HWP rush for me to watch, and it was repelled quite successfully but his opponent was dominion.  Romulans might have had trouble with that one.

I'll be on whenever I can to test and see if strats are overpowered.  For now, an agreement to not turret-rush is one way around it.

Was a different circumstance due to the rush tactic my opponent used, a20s forced me to engage him and not make use of my veqs, but my plan was to bombard his base from the safety of mine.

posted on February 23rd, 2012, 11:30 pm

The thing is, I want people to be able to bombard the enemy base from safety, if the enemy lets them get that far without attacking.  It would have been his fault for not attacking you in the several minutes it would take you to set up your strategy.

After further testing, I definitely need to extend the asteroids into the bottom left.  I hope I can still leave it open for raiding, but it's too easy for super-fast rushes and proxy yards.

What we need is a nebula (or trigger) that doesn't affect ships but prevents stations from being built, I feel like that would solve my problem here.

posted on February 24th, 2012, 12:17 am

By placing an object with a footprint down and then moving the object somewhere else you can create a footprint with no ship block.

posted on February 24th, 2012, 2:28 am

Really? Will that be persistent? Because when I save and load the map those always go away.  Also, it would be nice if there was a light visual effect to go with it, although I could create one with densely packed small asteroid fields.

posted on February 24th, 2012, 6:46 am

Looks really cool! Honestly, when I first the name of it I thought it said "The Ray" and I got really excited...

Which reminds me, I believe we are overdue on the map Boggz was going to make and name after me...

posted on February 24th, 2012, 10:29 am

I believe the small blocking trigger only prevents stations from being built there.
Ships are able to go through.