In alpha 3 ships still can move faster when holding down the [graph] button. Second to that I got a bulding error. A building was seemingly building for a infinite time, first off all it seemed as ifit was building normally but then the progress bar screwed up, a few secs later the progressbar restored, completed and begun again (so basically all progress was "undone") after this happened for a while it finally completed but the building did not appear, there were just these under construction tiles. I can't recall if it displayed health etc when moving the cursor over it but I believe not. It was a transformation gateway btw and I had one or tow other buildings under construction at the same time, those did complete succesfully though. I think i'll be skimming through the engine a little, altough I can't comprehend everything in there a fresh look might found the error more easily (long story short, i am gonna try to find the bug). I have not after this happened used SAD Alpha 3 so I don't know if this is a common error or not.

Just thought you need to know

I like your detailed Hydron better than the smaller one.

I read the full description, now that I finally had a chance to just sit down.  11 thumbs up.  I have just a couple of comments:

1.  What do you mean by swarmable?  S.A.D. allows a person to build multiple units of the same type at once, do you mean that a non-swarmable unit can only be used one at a time?  Or what do you mean by swarmable?

2.  I'll gladly help you any way I can, but make sure that each unit will make the player want to use it in late game.  Part of the difficulty I had with designing the Ptaloids and the Tosonians is making sure that even an hour into a game, each and every unit could help the player win the game.  In Starcraft, I have rarely seen Dark Archons and Queens being used, and I wanted to avoid that.

3. The Tosonians have a lot of air units, and most of their buildings float in the air as well.  Once again, I'll help you out, but we'll want to make sure that the Cythid can counter this without heavy difficulty.  So far, the Humans and Ptaloids do well with that, so we just need to do something similar with the Cythid.

1. A swarmable unit is indeed a unit that can have multiples of itself inside a, sort of say, group. Non-swaramble units are the opposite there can be only one of them at a time.

2&3. Good point. That's why you need to make the stats Feel free to change the stats even if they do not match with my descriptions. my descriptions are just intended as some guidelines as to what I think is more or less appropiate. Change the "Weak VS" and "Strong VS" to your liking as well!

Excellent, Matthias!  I really do like that idea.  Would you like me to do the statistics for you?

Yes, I think it is best if you do that mainly because you as the designer of this whole project know what a reasonable price is for a unit and what kind of attacks must be included etc.

So yea, if I don't bother you too much with it, please do so! I am going to work on the buildings now!

edit: I am adding some descriptions to some units to give you a idea of how powerful each unit (IMO) is

To answer your questions, yes I am  slightly occupied at the moment, but that doesn't matter S.A.D has a high priority now

I like your upgrade ideas, even though I'll have to look at it more.  However, the Ptaloids are insect-like, so you might want to come up with something else.  (I'm afraid I came up with the Ptaloids about a year, or even 2, ago)

Quote

I'll go with the good'ol scary-as-hell-aliens idea

I hate to tell you this, but I am not going to let that into my game under any circumstances.  If I were to tell you why, you wouldn't believe me.  I'm not saying stick with your robot idea, but that was, for example far less of a problem--come up with something that wouldn't cause people to flee from a movie theater.

Cyberants anyone?

I never really caught the fact that the platoids were insect like...sorry otherwise I would have chosen a other remap. I'll think we are heading to a third remap...

Nothing to worry about though, it's my own fault that I didn't see you already had the insect-like creatures in the game. the point is I am getting slightly annoyed with re-thinking this race over and over again. Again, not your fault, my fault. Also I think some other people might want to do the sprites altough I think mine are OK but they aren't spectacular in any sense...

Lucky me that I didn't design all the Cythid insect like buildings already, saves me some work...

ok first of all, I removed some comments, specifically the comments containing sprites and stats. This I did because the Xaos have been remapped entirely, instead call them the "Cythid" from now on!

I have gone back to the original robot idea but I made more cyberant like now. They aren't purely machines but half machine half-humanoid.

I am not completely done with the units and consider adding in some more, also I did not add in any stats because I tend to terribly overpower units, I'd like to have the community to help me (and therefore Hot_Dog)  with balancing out the units. I hope you are okay with this Hot_Dog? If not please let me know!

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Ups And Downs

The Cythid can evolve on the fly, that means that your units can grow stronger by upgrading them without requiring the construction of any (new) buildings. This of course costs some money and if your unit dies you'll have to re-evolve from the ground up (maybe I will scrap that but I think it is a good "penalty" for upgrading besides the cost)!

There are two unit levels:

• Humilus
• Inter

Humilus (which by the way is latin for "low" (inter=medium) is the lowest tier this is just the standard unit you can evolve from, these units are cheap, fast but do little damage.

Inter units do more damage then Humilus damage plus they have a special ability, they are however slower and costlier then Humilus-units.

Now you know you can upgrade but surely some have wondered can I downgrade? yes, I intend on having the Cythid being downgradable meaning that you can go from an Inter back to a Humilus. The point in downgrading is quickly getting money. You'll get 50% of the original upgrade price back. This can be extremely handy to get those last few coins to buy that one über unit with which you'll pown the AI!

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Units
So here is a small template layout for the stats of each unit (note: none are added atm, just for demonstrating purposes)

• Type: ground or air
• Speed: how fast the unit moves
• Fuels: which gasses, if any, does it use?
• DPS: how much damage the unit deals per second and how much shots it fires per second
• Cost:obvious
• Requirements: where to build and which upgrades/research is required to be done before it can be constructed
• Description: obvious
• Swarmable:
• Strong VS:Nothing,Ground,Air,Buildings
• Weak VS:Nothing,Ground,Air,Buildings,Anything

So far I have gotten:

Builderbot
non-evolvant

• Type: Ground
• Speed:
• Fuels:
• DPS:
• Cost:
• Requirements:
• Description: This unit is required for building any structures for the Xaos. It is a fairly fast unit but also extremely weak. It's the cheapest unit of the Cythid.
• Swarmable:N
• Strong VS:Nothing
• Weak VS:Anything

Battle drone
Humilus

• Type: Ground
• Speed:
• Fuels:
• DPS:
• Cost:
• Requirements:
• Description: With low-cost and high speed this unit is the runner up of the builderbot. It differs from the builderbot however since it can not build any structures but has a better attack and defense
• Swarmable:Y
• Strong VS:Ground
• Weak VS:Air,Buildings (defensive or not)

Inter

• Type: Ground
• Speed:
• Fuels:
• DPS:
• Cost:
• Requirements:
• Description:For a small price you can add more power to the Battle drone but as a side effect the unit becomes slightly slower. Good in the early stages to make hit&run attacks against an enemy unit
• Swarmable:Y
• Strong VS:Ground
• Weak VS:Air,Buildings

War drone
Humilus

• Type: Ground
• Speed:
• Fuels:
• DPS:
• Cost:
• Requirements:
• Description: Firing 4 shells of mortars this unit can havoc quite some damage at a mediocre range.Can be swarmed.
• Swarmable:Y
• Strong VS:Ground,Buildings
• Weak VS:Air

Inter

• Type: Ground
• Speed:
• Fuels:
• DPS:
• Cost:
• Requirements:
• Description: This more heavily armoured version of the War Drone adds to its defensive capabilities plus it has a slightly better firing rate. Can be swarmed.
• Swarmable:Y
• Strong VS:Ground,Buildings
• Weak VS:Air

Big foot
Humilus

• Type: Ground
• Speed:
• Fuels:
• DPS:
• Cost:
• Requirements:
• Description: The first really big unit of the Cythid, the bigfoot is a very effective unit against any ground opposition, it can damage buildings but it's better for fighting enemies.Can be swarmed.
• Swarmable:Y
• Strong VS:Ground
• Weak VS:Air,Buildings

Inter

• Type: Ground
• Speed:
• Fuels:
• DPS:
• Cost:
• Requirements:
• Description: The Inter Big Foot crushes any resistance and deals slightly more damage to buildings, it's slowness and low fire rate however makes it a ideal target for air units. Can be swarmed.
• Swarmable:Y
• Strong VS:Ground
• Weak VS:Air,Buildings

Runner
Humilus

Run for it! Run!

• Type: Air
• Speed:
• Fuels:
• DPS:
• Cost:
• Requirements:
• Description:Equipped with light machine guns these little flying machines can hit&run attack other air units very effectively, they cannot damage any ground units.Can be swarmed.
• Swarmable:Y
• Strong VS:Air
• Weak VS:Ground,Buildings

Inter

Kamikaze!

• Type: Air
• Speed:
• Fuels:
• DPS:
• Cost:
• Requirements:
• Description:Deals additional damage and adds the possibility to do a suicide attack on buildings/ground units. Can be swarmed.
• Swarmable:Y
• Strong VS:Air
• Weak VS:Ground,Buildings

Floater
non-evolvant

Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off

• Type: Air
• Speed:
• Fuels:
• DPS:
• Cost:
• Requirements:
• Description: This unit floats above a enemy building and unleashes a spectacular bombardement which cause quite some splash damage to buildings close to the target building. it is however extremely vulnerable against other units. It can dodge Anti Air bullets (some, not all)
• Swarmable:N
• Strong VS:Buildings
• Weak VS:Air,Ground

Hydron
non-evolvant, note:I am doubting which of the two sprites I will take, one is bigger but has more detail and the other is smaller but less detailed
Detailed

Undetailed

Water? why does...It can shoot?

• Type: Air
• Speed:
• Fuels:
• DPS:
• Cost:
• Requirements:
• Description: one of the biggest units of the Cythid, this unit is a heavy gunship that bombards ground targets with rains and rains of bullets and mines.
• Swarmable: N
• Strong VS:Ground
• Weak VS:Buildings

Chunker
non-evolvant

You...shall not...pass!

• Type: Ground
• Speed:
• Fuels:
• DPS:
• Cost:
• Requirements:
• Description: The biggest unit of the Cythid, but also very very slow. Ideal for making a full-out attack. It regenerates all the needed gasses when not moving.
• Swarmable:N
• Strong VS:Ground
• Weak VS:Air

Electron
non-evolvant

Lighting never strikes the same place twice..but it can strike freakin'everywhere!

• Type: Ground
• Speed:
• Fuels:
• DPS:
• Cost:
• Requirements:
• Description: The only ground-based anti-air unit of the Cythid. Powerful against aerial attacks and good for defending your base, it's weakness lays in it's lack of offensive means. The EMP special ability can slow down any closeby enemy units
• Swarmable: N
• Strong VS:Air
• Weak VS:Ground,Buildings

I just thought of some more commands we might want to include namely random number generators and sorting commands (to sort lists but maybe also to sort strings?? (migh be useful when delimiting))

any ideas on that?

I play PC only since I think it is the best platform for games. Why? because it is way faster and games are cheaper for it. Also aiming with a mouse in a shooter is far easier then aiming with a joystick or paddle on a controller. Strategy games play good on it too (yes there have been strategy games that weren't PC-only, namely "lord of the rings the battle for middle earth 2" which was for the xbox360)

Last but not least it is easy to record stuff on it or to make your own games! ranging from something as simple as gamemaker to intermediate xna to doing it all by hand in c++. Long story short: PC owns

Pc:
--Assassins Creed II
--Medieval II Total War
--CoD 2 & 4
--Borderlands (< awesome gun generation with, hold your breath, over 17.5 MILLION guns, that is right, 17.5 million guns in just 8Gb(that is the whole installation) that is what the generation system is for.)