STARCRAFT 2 - BATTLE TANKS

[Paladon]

So battle tanks for sc2 won't be released without tank custom models?

Who said that?

As it seems currently, there's no need of imported models in SC2-BT.
You can even combine existing models to new ones.

[Velocity2k]

[off-topic]
Maybe we can continue working on it in 24855 days :-D


[/off-topic]

[ssl]

Maybe we can continue working on it in 24855 days

No we can't. We then will still have to wait for another 3 hours and 14 minutes!

[Paladon]

I "repaired" the problems which occured with the second beta release and the final release of sc2.
That means, the developement can finally go on.

Also, there is no need for writing chat commands anymore, you can easily click on the corresponding button.
For often used commands (e.g. zoom), you will have a corresponding hotkey for that button.

A screenshot featuring the current (!) upper part of your screen while playing BT:
[attachment=0]

[4tyn]

I play WC3 since many years and now also SC2. I am a big fan and cant wait to play SC2 Btanks! Just want to say that I count myself lucky that such talented developers are working on this map. Can't wait to play it

[TKF]

:D

YES proof of progress for battle tanks.


Btw is the tank layout ideas though out? Are we going to have some similar tank settings like in wc3 battle tanks, or are we going to have new abilities with new tanks unique for battletanks sc2?

[Paladon]

I guess most of the tanks will use completely new concepts. We may overtake some (like classical BT-Tanks), but this is not thought to be a 1:1 copy of "btanks wc3".
Same applies for the weapons and items.

But the real developement of tanks, items and weapons did not start yet. I'm working on an engine for BT on SC2 that will easify updates and further developement of the map. That includes the User Interface but also tanks, items, units, weapons.
But currently, i just finished an engine for menu options

[Scarlioni]

Hi guys.

Take your time and get it right. FYI I purchased SC2 because I read the post saying you were developing a Btanks map for the game. No pressure.

The quality of the custom maps on SC2 atm are pretty poor. There's a dota clone called Epic up that's still in obvious alpha mode (never liked dota). The map called resugence base is a new take on tower defence games and is fairly fun. The campaign is a gem, I usually cant stand rts campaigns and feel that blizzard has just about reinvented the genre.

My questions to you are as follows...

1. Is the random shots to targets in range mechanic still in effect? I've always felt that this was the central game mechanic to your map that makes it so seductive.

2. Will you be using unit attribute tags to modify dps output for the weapons? (Light, Armored, Biological, Psionic, etc...) I think it would be intersting to have some weapons do bonus/less damage to certain vehicles. Can a unit be made with both the light and armored tags or are they mutually exclusive?

3. Will the number of spells for the tanks still be three regular and an ultimate?

4. If I posted tank suggestions which thread would you want them in?

The only feature I would like to see that's lacking in branks wc3 8.71 would be a general class that summons/modifies the creeps somehow. (beyond simple spawning factories.) A sort of tech wars/boreal conflict/nexus wars type of thing going on.

Anyone else notice that zerglings sprout wings when they're movement gets upgraded. Flying zerlings would be sick!

I'm also betting that blizzard's next mmo will be set in the starcraft universe.

Thank you in advance for your answers.

Scrumptous Scrotums

[Exodus]

Hi Scarlioni,
thanks for your interest and it's an honor for us, that you bought SCII just because of BT :)
Concerning your questions:
1. Well, unlike before we now have control over the algorithm that choses the next target of your weapon. This means we could implement all kind of fancy stuff. Or we leave it like it's implemented right now - random
2. As of right now, we didn't plan to implement such differentiation between the tanks, although this is possible. As far as I know you can also combine any unit attribute
3. That's actually an interesting question. At least the command card board provides more space this time around. I myself didn't even think about changing the number of different skills a single tank can have. I guess we stick to the 3 normal, one ultimate variant right now, but I guess it's also very possible, that there will be tanks that somehow differ from that.
4. Just use this forum for now, we will add more forums for SC later

There also are summoners already, like the Ghost Tank and Guard. But I guess you want a tank with more creep interaction. I can't promise anything, but we'll see what the future holds :)

[Scarlioni]

Name: Verytech fighter
Model: Valkyrie Air/Valkyrie Ground
Speed: Air Average/Ground Slow
Cost: 3300
HP: 2750

Skill: Gravity Bolt
Model: Marauder Attack
Range:1000
Target: Single Ground Unit
Channel: No
Effect: Damages and slows target for three seconds, both effects increase with level
Operation: Hotkey and select target
Notes: low damage skill, the slows the thing. Speed reduction and duration increase with level

Skill: Stirling Shot
Model: Valkyrie attack
Range: 750
Target: Everything in range
Channel: 1.5 second
Effect: Damage
Operation: Hotkey
Notes: Intented as a creep killer similar to the Goblin Shredder's metal stars. While channeling the Verytech Fighter pivots wildly blazing with machine guns

Skill: Fusion Bottle
This is really to skills...
Air Mode
Model: None
Target: Self passive
Effect: Speed Boost
Notes: Standard Air Model Speed Boost

Ground Mode
Model: Terran Missile Turret Swarm missile upgrade (Found only in campaign)
Range: 1300
Target: Air only large AoE
Channel: 1 seconf
Effect: Damages all air units under template
Operation: Hotkey and place template
Notes: Needs to hit fairly hard to give a reason to go around in ground mode

Ultimate: Agility
Model: None
Target: Self Passive
Effect: Damage reduction
Notes: 10% per level, at level 5 it's a 50% damage reduction

Design Notes: The starcraft Valkyrie is an obvious homage to Robotech's Veritech fighter. In FASA's Battledroids game (the predessasor of Battletech) the Veritech image was stolen and dubbed the Valkyrie, something I'm sure someone at Blizzard is aware of. Thus Verytech Fighter to avoid any copyright BS.

The transformation fuction requires an additional spell slot, I dont know if this causes you guys a problem.with your interface. Also the transforamation should have a cooldown of somehting like a minute. The transformation is it self a powerful ability if you reintorduce things like flak, bombs, axe launchers and the like as the verytech would be essentially immune to these weapons at will.

The Gravitc Bolt should work well in air mode in conjuction with Fusion Bottle to allow the Verytech to overrun ground vehicles. Add in agility and you have a nasty late game knife fighter.

Stirling is the name of the Ace Veritech pilot from robotech.

The Fusion Bottle ground mode is the killer skill this unit has. The AoE template so it has a chance to hit more than one target.

Anywhos... be tickled if any of these ideas influence the work your doing. If you want more let me know.

[Scarlioni]

Not to pester but a couple of more questions...

What graphic are you going to use for the basic cannon skill? (aka the hydralisk spike, the stalker twin laser bolt thing, etc)

I noticed in the screen shots that your tooling around in a raven... planning on giving the raven the auto turret ability? I'd pegged either the raven or the phoenix to replace the copter.

1. Well, unlike before we now have control over the algorithm that choses the next target of your weapon. This means we could implement all kind of fancy stuff. Or we leave it like it's implemented right now - random

I couldnt even begin to imagine how that would work. Like firing arcs?

[Paladon]

I am just using a Raven as a test tank because it's a flying unit^^
That doesn't automatically mean that we'll add a Raven tank

Currently, i designed the engine that way, so the tank units can be just regular units assigned to be a "Tank" by a custom function.
Of course, this has several effects on the general appearance ingame. But behind the scenes, all units are pretty much "regular" ones.
The whole custom engine is probably the biggest difference to BT @ Wc3 yet.

[Bob666]

1. Well, unlike before we now have control over the algorithm that choses the next target of your weapon. This means we could implement all kind of fancy stuff. Or we leave it like it's implemented right now - random

Definitely random!! That's what Battle Tanks is about. In WC3 it actually isn't completely random by the way: High-HP units take more damage (Try attacking two units with different HP at the same time, they will die about at the same time). And manipulating the chance could also be done in SC2, for examples weapons with a priority of 5 for tanks and 1 for simply units would fire 5 out of 6 bullets on a tank, if theres one tank and one unit nearby. Or priority of 10000 for buildings and 1 for units/tanks, would only fire on buildings as soon as in range. This way weapons could be controlled a bit, without losing the main game aspect of movement being responsible for your weapon's target choice.

And now pro/contra on an early (but without many features) release. At first I expected BT to be released some days after SC2's release date due to working on it during the beta phase. This didn't happen and it seems to me like a big chance was already missed (Imagine BT being the first map hosted in SC2). Here are my thoughts about the release date of BT:

Pro early release:
- There aren't many maps yet, especially good ones. This means there is a good chance a intermediate BT would already attract lots of players.
- Not all SC2 players played WC3 before, so Battle Tanks has to form its reputation from zero.

Pro late release:
- Planned release dates will make some players wait for BT and give it a fast start.
- Bugs/Imbalances could occur

In my opinion, you need to work on BT a lot now, and do it fast. It's all about the first two months of SC2. Once the position is established, development can slow down to a normal level. Waiting for patches before doing anything is a very bad idea: You get to know the editor by finding solutions to difficult problems. And by doing so, you can create a special map which is very different to any other map, which is restricted to the intended features of SC2.

You won't be able to release a perfect BT instantly. BT was never perfect or any kind of "final", but it improved over the years. Actually now it got to some kind of final state, but I think the evolution of BT is a big factor why people like it. So do not try to launch a perfect BT, just start somewhere (of course with some basic concept) and then improve it. Things like priorities in weapons, special effects on weapons and so on can easily be added later. I think BT is ready to release it as soon as there are about 5 tanks and 10 weapons. It would be very limited of course, but make the players thirst for more.

[TKF]

If we could release before dota is out, maybe this get more popular than later popular maps.

[Prog]

Well said Bob - I completely agree.

[silentbob10]

Well i for one am really looking forward to playing the new Btanks for SC2 and find myself still playing on WC3 version as the current maps for SC2 aint up to much yet. Infact its the only reason i bought the game lol. Oh and im pro early release as i feel u will attrct alot of people as the current crop of maps are pretty shabby.

As a side note id like to thank you guys for all your hard work on Btanks its really good to know such dedicated people are out there working for the gaming community.

[EssiXr3i]

I agree to you Bob. But don't set up to much pressure.

At the moment there are nearly no good custom maps available for SC2. So this early release idea will give Btanks a big advantage over every other upcoming custom map.
I don't care if the first released SC2 BT won`t be perfect. You got many time to improve it while a first release is out.

[TKF]

I agree to you Bob. But don't set up to much pressure.

At the moment there are nearly no good custom maps available for SC2. So this early release idea will give Btanks a big advantage over every other upcoming custom map.
I don't care if the first released SC2 BT won`t be perfect. You got many time to improve it while a first release is out.

Well battle tanks 1.0 was shit compared to current version, so BT2 for SC2 can also be partially crap with some tanks added, and some weapons. More can be added in future versions.

But the thing which takes longest time to create, is triggers and systems and leveling system which isn't default for the sc2 editor unfortunately. This takes great amount of effort to create.

Also the Data Editor is complex and more difficult to use that the object editor in wc3, but it's also greater cuz you can add more attacks to units and customize the projectiles itself which is customizable. In this fashion attacks for weapons can be made and using this object system will give room for future abilities and awesome systems, for example to counter projectiles, stop them in the air etc, anti anti weapons for example...

[Ger-Dyers-Eve]

And even much more complexer game instead of a fun map with gameplay-focus? :mrgreen:

[xth3bl3dx]

Just wanted to let you developers know that I also bought SC2 just for battletanks. I honestly cannot WAIT for this scenario to be released. Right now there aren't many good ones out for sc2 mainly because the game just came out. I agree with all the other people when they say that you would have an upper hand if you were to release it soon, but i don't want a failed version of it. The version of DoTA that is out right now called EPIC is basically unplayable and so horrible that i wouldn't even want to play a future release of the game. I mean don't get me wrong they have enough content to start a good release of it, but the interface is so poorly designed that it hurts to look at. i would hate for you guys to make the same mistake. Please take your time in making another great version of battletanks that will leave me wanting to play more! Btw, I love to see screenshots of your guys' progression. it gives me something to look forward to! wouldn't mind seeing more of that on a daily/weekly basis

thanks again! :mrgreen: