refinery examples

i made some refinery examples in a testmap free to use or experiment with

refinery 1: has geometry obstructing the refinery but can still be placed by the commander
(dont expect too much of this lol )

refinery 2: a refinery point that automatically places the refineries for infantry to build (using a flag, for maps without commander or for a map where the mapper wants to prevent refinery begging)

refinery 3: has a finite amount of resources and a "tap" like structure that displays how much is left in the refinery to infantry and commander
if the tap is opened by the big red valve the resources flow out in steam and the total amount starts to dissipate, but it is also needed to open the tap to be able to build a refinery on the point, once the refinery is empty the refinery built on it gets destroyed and is unable to be rebuilt
(great for ending stalemates by using this as the flag close to base or to make strategic locations change when the game progresses since some refineries will run out of fuel quicker then others )

refinery 4: A very simple system of refineries that appears as a phantom refinery to the players of its team (be see be refinery, nf see nf refinery and cant see the other teams refinery ghost)

on fully built the real refinery spawns fully built, if the refinery dies the ghost refineries of each team spawn again

newest version:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1415325/refinery.rar

i fixed a minimal bug, refinery 3 should work better now

if you want to change anything about these refineries for use in maps, and are unable to figure out how they work i am more then happy to explain more deeply

 

The third idea sounds awesome!

 

its not really an idea since i got it to work

 

Amazing.

The second one has way more going on that I thought it would. Is it possible for a commander to place a refinery on that point? If so, what happens to the automated refinery placement if he does?

 

I like the second 2

 

It does have way more going on that it would seem at first. This is what keeps people from making refineries like this, as 90% of the people who map in empires are mapping for the first time it seems.

There really needs to be some sort of entity support with this functionality.

 

Well, automatic refinery placement is basically attempting to accomplish something outside of what normally should happen in gameplay, so it's naturally going to run into some hurdles. Adding in the flag capture point likely just made it more complicated than it needed to be.

 

not really. Basically it tells the game if a player sits in this spot, they get this refinery. There really isnt any other way to do it, unless you have some sort of comm building detection that gives resources when a com places a specific building in an area (as opposed to a refinery).

Also, #2 solves the issues with #1

 

The flag refs in king use probably about a dozen entities each and lots of interconnecting logic, but you can make refs which require no commandr input and work fairly well, it just eats the entdata for each one you place.

You COULD make it quite a bit similar by using triggers rather than flags, but flags have visual feedback for the players and are a familiar mechanic, the only difference is that with the ref flags the refinery spawns at the end and locks the flag to that team until it is destroyed. It may also be possible to use the map buildable object system to create a refinery placement, but I haven't investigated that option.

Really however we could use modifications to the res node entity to remove the need for comms to place them, they don't need to cost money, they don't need to be comm placed, and they could function perfectly well if they were buildable like map objects.

 

I suggested something similar to your number 2 a while ago.

Then the thread died, and no one bothered to test gameplay with the flag-refinery idea that the thread spawned.

So..... I take full credit! Not :p

Um...thanks for doing that. I hope it works out.

 

Just a question cause I don't want to download the map and test it just for this but wouldn't a player be able to change classes if you use refinery example 2?

 

yes, and a commander is unable to place a flag on the refinery 2 , but this can be toggled as preferred


as chis said i could make it simpler and not requie a flag, but i wanted it to require one so i did

 

#2 should be the default for all maps.

Thank you blizzerd for making these examples!

 

If you want to do it easily, just set up flags over each ref location that give res. Pity about lack of scaling.

 

any of you have more ideas/requests of flags and refineries or anything related? i could possibly make them once i get back from my trip (im in knokke atm on a mac : /)

 

Number 3 sounds awesome, it truly implements the resource management aspect of the game, but I doubt much players will like it, except for the competitive players, number 2 is the best all round option.

Someone should create a poll for this.

 

you can combine number 3's and normal ones, and like make the number 3's have a higher refinery output rate so they are a strategic bonus to have them unless they ran out

 

I kinda was thinking that, sounds awesome. The limited Reserves really makes the game harder, and destroys the half hour long stalemate periods.

 

Is there any way to use #2 without flags?

I'm trying to implement it on my map, but all this entity stuff confuses me.

 

you could use some sort of "OnTouch" with a brush based entity other than a flag cap point.

but then the refinery would be spawned every time someone even touched the thing.

Flags make it possible to make sure that you have a certain number of people there, and that you have control over the point.