Couple ideas for PvP style YouTube series

[FishSandwich]

I was thinking about a PvP series. Basically, myself and another Youtuber would start of on a default setting map(but probably with low or no enemies). One person stays in the spawn area while the other heads to another part of the map. We build up our bases with the goal of wiping each other out.

Problem is, turrets won't defend our bases. So I was thinking about a mod that would spawn biters once a certain amount of resources were gathered(and put in a chest? not sure) If I spawn biters, they go and attack other player's base. If they spawn biters, they come to attack mine.

Another problem is shared research, so I think it would be best to just have everything unlocked from the beginning.

Second idea is same as above, except the goal would be to gather a certain amount of resources before the other one can. Thinking the first to x amount of all intermediate products would be good. In this one we don't spawn biters, but can come to sabotage each other by destroying each others buildings etc.(obviously certain rules would be necessary for this, like having the minimap turned off)
Both of these ideas would likely be single commentary(not sure dual commentary would work) so each person's video would be from their own perspective and have their own commentary.

Anyway, just some ideas I've had. I'm interested to know what you guys think.

[DaveMcW]

It's too easy to build a completely biter-proof defense. You would have to give biters extra powers, at which point it becomes more about your hard-mode mod than PVP.

I think the simplest way to have competition right now is do a speed run with the same map exchange string. Maybe you could have mini-goals and play from the winner's save each time, so a strong start for one person doesn't end it early.

[n9103]

I would contest that claim about any base being biter-proof.
I can easily agree that biters can be delayed and repelled, but left on its own, any base will fall to the right combination of enemies.
I imagine most bases that are believed to be biter-proof would succumb to a well-timed set of biters and spitters that has the biters arriving just before the spitters, providing a damage-soaking cover for the spitters to take out the turrets.
The only time bases are going to be completely unable to cause damage is going to be before spitters spawn, or when the resources used to build a base are completely divorced from the pollution those resources required (either through distance or excessive time).
Putting an imbalance on the player's side by doing either of those defeats the point of making statements that compare the player to the summed up enemy forces.

[ssilk]

I think this will only work, if the players are put on one video,cause it will be boring to watch the whole same game from both sides. Either the videos are cutter together making out of 25 mins playing a 30 mins video or so, or both videos are put side by side.

I think also, this will become unfair at some point, cause there are no mechanism to balance the players abilities out.

[Rahjital]

You know, you could try spawning a character of force.enemy and then have one player posses it. If that worked, you would have true PvP with shooting each other, seperate research, etc.

[Xterminator]

I like the idea and would be up for trying it if we could figure out a good way to get it to work. As everyone else said, in the current state of the game, I think it would be incredibly difficult or just not possible to have an interesting type of PvP match up. :/
I will try to think of some way to do it though!

[Rahjital]

You know, you could try spawning a character of force.enemy and then have one player posses it. If that worked, you would have true PvP with shooting each other, seperate research, etc.

It wooooorks!

At least in singleplayer, that is. I can't test whether it works in MP at this time. Just use these four console commands to change yourself to the enemy force:

Code: Select all

/c oldPlayer = game.players[1].character
/c newPlayer = game.createentity{name = "player",position = oldPlayer.position,force = game.forces.enemy}
/c game.players[1].character = newPlayer
/c oldPlayer.destroy()

And voila, you are now an ally of biters!

A few notes:
- Autoaiming works, you can use SMGs against each other (and turrets)
- You can deconstruct all enemy buildings except turrets, which you have to shoot to destroy
- Research is broken for the force-enemy player, he shares all research with force-player and can't even do any researching himself
- The enemy player is red on map, much like biters are, and everything he places is red as well. This creates a nice "red vs blue" thing on the map

[FishSandwich]

I think this will only work, if the players are put on one video,cause it will be boring to watch the whole same game from both sides.

Have to disagree with you there ssilk. I(and many others) used to religiously watch starcraft tournaments years ago, from both viewpoints. Those were 30min - 1h long videos of just gameplay, no commentary etc. That being said, I do plan to 'hopefully' do video in video, so you can see the other player's screen at the same time, but you'd still have to watch their video to get the commentary.

I can't test whether it works in MP at this time.

It does work, but it screws up research for the enemy player, he has only the starting items unlocked.

[drs9999]

I just got an idea. You could use a mod that allows the player to build enemy spawners. That's actually the basic idea which could be easily expanded, e.g. there could be a spawner for each tier of biter/spitter, spawner could be unlocked via reasearch or after an arbitrary amount of time etc.

You might say that it sucks, because you also get attacked by your "own" biters, but for me that adds another challenge. You have to decide where and especially how many spawners you build. On one side you can't place too much otherwise you die and on the other side you shouldn't place just a few, because they won't cause any serious damage.

[Nova]

Well, if the spawner have the same force as the player, he should not be attacked by them, or?

[drs9999]

In general yes, but in the most basic form (with only the vanilla spawner) it's literally a 3-liner to fix it.

[Nova]

I prefer the idea of being able to create spawners to attack the enemy, without getting attacked by my own spawners.

[drs9999]

Sure, but currently it isn't possible that 2 players are in different forces...

[Nova]

Oh, okay.

[Rahjital]

I can't test whether it works in MP at this time.

It does work, but it screws up research for the enemy player, he has only the starting items unlocked.

If you don't mind having all items researched from the beginning, you can use the console to unlock all recipes for both forces

Code: Select all

/c for k, v in pairs(game.forces.enemy.recipes) do v.enabled = true end
/c for k, v in pairs(game.forces.player.recipes) do v.enabled = true end

Note that this will unlock normally unobtainable recipes such as railgun and player port.

[FishSandwich]

You are awesome.

Is it possible to spawn biters using the createentity, with game.forces.player and game.forces.enemy? That would make for some epic biter battles.

Edit: Never mind, it does work! Awesome. So I need to find out how to send spawned biters to the other player's base, or maybe follow the player around.

I prefer the idea of being able to create spawners to attack the enemy, without getting attacked by my own spawners.

This is also possible!

[n9103]

I would think you would be able to set all technologies to researched instead to avoid having the unobtainables enabled.
Now if only there was a way to make a second pollution layer.

[FishSandwich]

I would think you would be able to set all technologies to researched instead to avoid having the unobtainables enabled.

Unfortunately, that doesn't work for the enemy faction.

[kyranzor]

Is there a way to change destroyer drones art to the player model? I just looked through the luas and I think it's doable..

You can use destroyer capsules to spawn soldiers and wage war/lead raids on the other player. Looks better if the drones have the player model though, even if they just keep shooting lasers like before.

[Rahjital]

Destroyers look really weird when they drift around with a player sprite. However, it's really easy to mod capsules to spawn biters instead. Watching biter battles is surprisingly fun!

There's also a quirk I noticed - the biters I spawned saw and attacked biters nests at really long distance, even up to several hundred tiles in some cases. At first I thought they attack everything you see on your minimap, but then I noticed they often run into unexplored areas and attack there. I have no idea if it works that way for enemy faction biters, or if they play by different rules.

Edit: Don't shoot your own biters! They will all turn on you if you do that, so be careful with shotguns and explosives around them.