Baak's Artillery Pak

[Frumius]

Baak's Artillery Pak allows you to substitute one of many third-party artillery units (see below) for one or more type of normal unit. F'rinstance, you can have all dwarves become Sak Cannons, or have the Jman be a Dwarf Airship, etc. Two of the units aren't technically artillery, but hey (the HexoGriffins and the HexoDragons).

You can find it on the OoH BattlePlan.

So here are a few near-incoherent first thoughts on Baak's Artillery Pak • V.02:

Dirigibles are slow-flying wights in essence. They're harder for arty to pop than a wight. I don't think they have a larger blast, but I'd have to take another look. Not sure if they'd float OVER the walls in Venice, or go through the doors (the Griffin flies, too, but goes THROUGH those doors).

Dwarf Airships are similar to the Leggo Airship in that they are made to look like lighter-than-air craft. Very different look, though. Kinda funky-looking, but really neat. These you truly do have to think of as a dwarf on a pole. Like Leggo Airships and dwarves, they throw their own unique bomb. There is no special attack. They have no real air-to-air combat ability, though they can eventually hurt one another: if two enemy airships do air-to-air battle they will bump and grind on each other until one eventually hurts the other. I think it may be that one will eventually have it's "lob mechanism" (my term) activated and it will lob its bomb at the other Airship... unfortunately, the range at this point is such that both can get hurt at once, and I even saw more than one die at one time in a threesome battle. They fall slowly in death, then blow up. Not sure if that secondary explosion causes damage. A couple times I sure wanted it to, but it didn't seem to! I think it might be neat to incorporate a better air-to-air attack, mb a mana-based arrow volley, dragon flame, or Leggo Airship missiles even. Dogfights are great, so I'd like to see that capability added to them.

HexoDragons are crazy cool flying beasts. I love them. They scream like the Nazgul when you order them around. They shoot a jet of mana-based flame in both air-to-air and air-to-ground attacks. No special. They can be killed by HexoGriffins, ground-based arty, and other HexoDragons. The Leggo Airship (as opposed to Dwarf Airship) can kill them every time with its missiles, and the Leggo Airship is unhurt by their fire, which unfortunately makes Leggo Airships invincible against HexoDragons. The Dwarf Airship, however, is hurt by their flame and will die. Since Dwarf Airships don't do air-to-air well, HexoDragons are all but invincible to them. [Duffiek just showed me (he's playing Stair of Grief with HexoDragons) that the HexoDragon will not move from its start spot on that map. It shows a red circle on the ground when he tells it to move. When he clicks on surrounding mountain terrain, he gets the yellow circle but cannot move to it because the HexoDragon won't move across the snowy landscape to get there. They worked fine on Into the Breach, even able to attack the units on the defending walls (he had Sak Cannons up there!) Maybe snowy terrain screws them up. We should test them on a snowy multi-player map.]

HexoGriffins. Griffins are mythological creatures with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. HexoGriffins are neat flying melee units that can attack both ground and air targets by swooping in and using their fearsome talons to inflict pain and suffering. Maybe they use their beaks, too, but I didn't notice. Strangely, while I think they do fly high enough to fly over the walls on Venice, they have to go through the doors to get into the middle! They can do battle with HexoDragons, but they seem to have the exact same speed, so a chase is often pointless.

SakCannon... we all know and love the Sak Cannon. SakCannons are wonderful units. They're long, dark, and hard with a blast that'll cream enemy units. (I know what you're thinking. Don't.) It has a greater range than an archer, but is very inaccurate, making its powerful explosion hard to place exactly where you want it. It's s lower than a Trebuchet -- hell, it's slower than 3-legged toddler -- but does more damage. It's taunt is great. We OoHers love this thing.

TremorCannons are pretty dang neat. They look like a pretty normal Dwarf with two wheels and a cannon barrel out front. I'm not sure whether the wheels are part of them physically (as their own legs) or they're pushing a cannon/cart. They move at about Dwarf speed and have a range similar to an archer. They throw a unique projectile. It's a polygonal disk that they sort of frisbee out at the target. It might blow up on impact or skip along the ground, seemingly analogously to a bouncing dwarf cocktail. Their explosion is bigger than a dwarf cocktail's explosion. I don't think the TremorCannons have a special. I like them.

VCatapult and VFix Catapult This is the least exciting unit to me. The "VFix Catapult" is a stationary VCatapult. VCatapults look neat, but I don't like their behavior. I think the mobile one is faster than Trebuchets. What I don't like is that it is too easy to target with it and it's too powerful: It shoots a mortar round very far and can shoot again too quickly, much more quickly than a Treb can recharge. These attacks aren't mana-based. To aim, you target your enemy directly -- click enemy or control click where you want to shoot; using them is way too easy for such a powerful weapon. You can just target the enemy and then go do something else, whereas with a Trebuchet you need to pay attention each time you fire. The Treb also has a powerful attack, but it's balanced because you can't shoot rapidly and aiming takes patience and skill. VCatapults require neither. Also, the VCatapult is much harder to blow up than a Treb. Its one saving grace is that Melee units seem to be able to hurt it more quickly than they can hurt Trebs. These units need to be more easily blown up, slowed down in both firing and movement, and perhaps given a weaker attack. They don't shoot as far as a treb, but at least twice as far as an archer. I think these units need a lot of help to tone them down.


Here's the complete list from the Artillery Pak V.02:

~~ Dirigible (archers) ap02
~~ Dirigible (barons) ap02
~~ Dirigible (dwarves) ap02
~~ Dirigible (fetch) ap02
~~ Dirigible (ghols) ap02
~~ Dirigible (giants) ap02
~~ Dirigible (healers) ap02
~~ Dirigible (warlocks) ap02
~~ Dirigible (wights) ap02
~~ DwarfAirship (archers) ap02
~~ DwarfAirship (barons) ap02
~~ DwarfAirship (dwarves) ap02
~~ DwarfAirship (fetch) ap02
~~ DwarfAirship (ghols) ap02
~~ DwarfAirship (giants) ap02
~~ DwarfAirship (healers) ap02
~~ DwarfAirship (warlocks) ap02
~~ DwarfAirship (wights) ap02
~~ HexoDragon (archers) ap02
~~ HexoDragon (barons) ap02
~~ HexoDragon (dwarves) ap02
~~ HexoDragon (fetch) ap02
~~ HexoDragon (ghols) ap02
~~ HexoDragon (giants) ap02
~~ HexoDragon (healers) ap02
~~ HexoDragon (warlocks) ap02
~~ HexoDragon (wights) ap02
~~ HexoGriffin (fetch) ap02
~~ HexoGriffin (healers) ap02
~~ HexoGriffin (wights) ap02
~~ SakCannon (archers) ap02
~~ SakCannon (barons) ap02
~~ SakCannon (dwarves) ap02
~~ SakCannon (fetch) ap02
~~ SakCannon (ghols) ap02
~~ SakCannon (giants) ap02
~~ SakCannon (healers) ap02
~~ SakCannon (warlocks) ap02
~~ SakCannon (wights) ap02
~~ TremorCannon (archers) ap02
~~ TremorCannon (barons) ap02
~~ TremorCannon (dwarves) ap02
~~ TremorCannon (fetch) ap02
~~ TremorCannon (ghols) ap02
~~ TremorCannon (giants) ap02
~~ TremorCannon (healers) ap02
~~ TremorCannon (warlocks) ap02
~~ TremorCannon (wights) ap02
~~ VCatapult (barons) ap02
~~ VCatapult (dwarves) ap02
~~ VCatapult (giants) ap02
~~ VFixCatapult (barons) ap02
~~ VFixCatapult (giants) ap02
~~ VFixCatapult (healers) ap02

[Baak]

Excellent critique, Frum! Just the kind of feedback I need!


First with the VCatapult and VFixedCatapult (I put the "V" on their to distinguish them as being Volund's Catapults from the Siege maps since there is also a HexoCatapult we're going to try in the next iteration): I agree they aren't as playable as other units. Personally, I think we'll take them out of the Artillery Pak (an alternate name for this set of plugins I've thought about is "Blast Pak" - tell me what you think of that too). So let's remove those two.

For the next iteration we'll add in the HexoCatapult and HexoBallista, and I will modify them slightly to bring them up to speed. The HexoCatapult needs an RPG/Treb style attack (click part way to target) as right now they hesitate like crazy before firing (it's maddening to watch them go back and forth ad infinitum). The HexoBallista will be the one "fixed" (i.e. stationary) unit (good for CTF, Assassin, and FR/Terries on some maps). Playing with the VFixedCatapult on CTF was cool I thought, but I had wished it was a HexoBallista. I am going to replace the HB "Bolt" (current attack which seems weak) with the same multi-large-arrow-volley I added to the Trebuchet unit - this should be cool, especially since it will be mana-based and won't run out.

I'm not sure if we'll like the HexoCatapult, but it's different and interesting enought that we just might. We gotta give it a shot (doh!).


Other units: The Dwarven Airship is really neat. I PM'ed GIANT (Idiots Mapmaking Collective) yesterday and he already gave me a reply with permission, etc. So cool. I think we can take this unit to the next level and get that air-to-air attack upgraded. I actually think having it still be a "barrel toss" might be really cool, as it's whacky enough to be Dorf-like (the missile from Leggo is a little too un-Myth-canon (omg another artillery pun) imo). I'm thinking a low-arc barrel-toss for air-to-air would also be cool since if it misses it will hit the ground possibly wreaking havoc there! I'm also thinking of putting in this attack in addition to the "ramming" attack, since that one can be really neat for up-close encounters (and for suicide type attacks). I do think the crash should do damage, so we'll have to investigate that. Also the primary-color-for-balloon doesn't seem to work right (my D-Airships are purple although my colors are red/red) - will have to fix that.

That's the beauty of doing these plugins - after picking the most playable and best interactive units, then we can tweak them a little to really make them playable (like the Trebuchets).

Agreed on the "fire should burn Leggo Airships". We can do a revision of them (and Trebs - though I don't think we want any changes in Trebs, do we?) in the Artillery Pak since the plugins can be different.


Remedial's Tremor Cannon is so inspired. I just PM'ed him for permission to add it to the mix so hopefully he'll be a-ok with it. I tried to hit a dragon with one of these guys last night but it missed - thought that would be cool to see.


The Griffin should move over the walls (I made all the flying units move over Walking Impassable so this should work) - another tweak we'll put on the list.

Dragons are cool, aren't they? Really well done imo. One of the best unused units I've seen.

Saks are just so bitchin' and I'm so happy we've brought them back to life (we (the OoH) used to play them all the time when they only substituted for Warlocks, then kinda shelved them after making Trebuchets into a plugin - now they're back and mix perfectly with Trebs and these other units). Only thing I noticed last night is they wouldn't shoot close-range to flying targets - dang - might be neat to have attacks against flying units closer range, but then on the ground this might give them too much of an advantage. Problem is, there is no "against flying units" attack flag. Argh.

Dirigibles are equally bitchin' and I think will make an excellent addition to the mix. I wonder if we should only have a Dirigibles (wights) for these guys?

Which brings me to an important point...


We probably should weed out the unit substitutions that don't make any sense really - for example, Griffins (archers) is probably too many Griffins. In fact, most of these units (including Trebs) substituting for Archers is probably overkill, so maybe they should go. I can see Dragons (archers) though. This is part of the fine-tuning.

I'd prefer not to make the Artillery Pak a two-plugin deal (like RDF), but it does get HUGE when you start adding up all the plugins. Doing it as a two-plugin deal (one plugins is the "Artillery Pak Core") means the total size of the thing is MUCH smaller (all the above plugins would be a few kb). It's probably 20 MB versus 100 MB - just like RDF (12 MB instead of 120 MB). Thus we either weed out enough (as described above), or we make it a two-plugin deal.

[Death's Avatar]

Woo! I do love these sorts of plugs. Just the thing I love to mess around with when I am just doing solo by myself. Trebuchets was a good time too...

My only request: please stop naming your plugins with a leading ~~. It absolutely ruins alphabetical order.

As far as the plugins themselves go, they are undoubtedly scrumtralecent.

-DA

[Baak]

My only request: please stop naming your plugins with a leading ~~. It absolutely ruins alphabetical order.

Alas, you have to do something odd like this to get them to load after any third-party maps/plugins, and the ~~ is done to allow "stacking" so these plugins can stack with RDF and others (which begin with a single ~) by loading after them.

Weird trivia note: There is actually a ~~~ plugin for substituting UGR Exploding Dorf Heads for regular treb ammo. It's called "~~~ Dorf Head Treb Ammo" and can be made active with any of the trebuchet plugins to get the grim (especially on duds!) and sickly amusing Exploding Dorf Heads flying around (I even tweaked them to make them extra gooey). The Swineherd Stampede unit is also named using ~~~ so it will load after Trebs, etc.


If you don't do this with plugins that are meant to load on top of other plugins - particularly third-party maps - they won't load any altered/new tags if the map/plugin name comes after. Sad but true. I found this out after requesting the ability to stack plugins long ago and it's really the only simple way to do things (unless we implement some other method).


So if you named a plugin "ap Dirigibles (archers)" and tried to load it on any third-party map whose name came alphabetically after "ap " (e.g. "Borogove"), then it would not substitute any altered or third-party units in the Borogove map.

Let's say Borogove has an "archer (special)" unit that we substitute for in the Artillery Pak. The following breaks:

<Myth II tags>
ap Dirigibles (archers)
Borogove <== "archer (special)" overwrites value in AP

Whereas naming the AP plugin so it comes alphabetically later works fine:

<Myth II tags>
Borogove
~~ Dirigibles (archers) <== "archer (special)" is now a Dirigible! w00t!


I picked "~" because when you look at the ASCII codes you'll see the non-extended ones go:

w
x
y
z
{
|
}
~

I used ~ for several OoH plugins and used { for the Anywhere series. Starting with | doesn't work on Windows and starting with } just looks weird.


So I'm afraid the ~, ~~, {'s will stay unless we decide to adjust the load order some other way.

[A-Red]

Dirigibles have a bit more blast radius than a Wight (6-7 or 7-8 wus instead of 5-6, I think), the explosion does more damage, and it releases (don't quote me on this) between 5 and 8 pus packets instead of the Wight's 2-3, and the packets can potentially fly further due to starting at a greater height. It's also worth noting that it is actually faster than the Wight--.23, the same speed as a Ghast, instead of .20, the speed of Wights and Thralls.

[Death's Avatar]

Interesting Baak, the issue had never really occurred to me.

-DA