StarCraft: Inconsummate - fan campaign - Page 4

Mission 1:
Well, Part one, just pick off the Zerg one by one. I think you need more triggered aggression, because normal aggro can be too easily abused.
Again getting a gas base was hardly worth it because by the time it actually got up the Terran was already as good as dead with some Lings clearing out the leftovers and my Lurker/Ling/Stroluum already clearing out the Protoss. This time I killed the blue Terran Bunker/Tank first, which ended up costing me a Lurker to a tank shot and some Zealot pokes when I proceded to kill the Gates on the left.

Mission 2:
Only got enough ground forces to secure both gas bases, then switched to Mutas and cleared out the rest. Haven't tried it using only the starting forces yet. Since the Protoss actually mine out the bases in this mission, getting them as fast as possible is probably best.

Mission 3:
After some experimenting with different unit composition I still deem Muta micro into Muta/Ling to clear out the bases on the right (where most of the resources are) the best strategy. After that I easily had 4+ control groups of Mutas to just walk (well, fly, actually) over all the blue stuff…
The intro cut-scnene is best skipped completely – reason being that this gives you about 6 extra starting lings across both positions, which would have otherwise died during the intro.

Mission 4:
I already told you, I basically speedran this: Get Ovi speed, fly an Ovi to the dead Cerebrate.It's possible to take a direct route or get the Overlord to the water on the right side and wait for speed to finish, doesn't make much of a difference distance/timing-wise. After that just kill the Protoss with Muta/Guardian/Drop, use a control group of Mutas to kill all the remaining Protoss building scattered around the map and get Goska to the beacon. Took me less than 15 minutes on my first try. With an optimized strategy (mostly because I did not know I'd also have to kill the scattered buildings), with an optimized strategy and good execution this mission can probably be finished in about 5 minutes.
Not skipping the intro dialogue has the upshot of starting with a Larva immediately, but for an actual speedrun you'd probably skip it to get the Ovi speed upgrade started asap.

Mission 5:
Well, I think I broke this one in way you probably haven't foreseen by heavily abusing how you triggered the map. This was not necessarily the fastest possible way to beat the map, but with some modifications/optimizations it might just as well be.
So here's a step by step instruction, with a map overview to help you follow along:
+ Show Spoiler [map overview] +
At game start, skip the intro when all Drones are holding minerals for an optimal start (this is a bit luck-based, as they don't mine from the same patches every time).
So my original strategy was to get the gas base [1] asap. However, I figured out that this triggers the red Protoss AI, so I skipped that base completely this time. Instead I build 4 extra Hydralisks and killed the base [2] to get my 2nd gas there. Some droning up, build a control group of Hydras (+Goska) and kill the Starports in the bottom left, then I killed [3] with 2 control groups of Hydras. Kill, that is, except for the Nexus.

• so now the red Protoss AI is still not triggered
  
• and I have a base with unlimited resources.
  

Killing [4] and [5] after that, because could as well…
Now I consolidated what I had by taking all the bases, building a ring of Sunkens around [3] (out of range from the Nexus, of course, to prevent any Probes from rebuilding stuff), take bases [4] and [5] for myself and build a nice defensive Spore/Sunken wall along [2],[0], [5] while also getting two Spires and starting Muta production.
By now my Hydras move in on [6], about to become my second inexhaustible resource base. That means I did not trigger Tuzor, of course, but who needs them anyways? – nor the red Protoss, again… Again, Sunken ring around the base. I also parked Goska behind the mineral line where he could snipe any rebuild Probes.
My force is now one left-over group of Hydras and bunch Mutas, Guardians, Devourers, which are getting constant air upgrades. Next base is 7, still not triggering red, but at this point it probably doesn't even matter any more, as [8] is what I am really after, as my third inexhaustible Protoss slave base.
By that point my death cloud (1 control group of Devourers, 2 cgs of Mutas, 2cgs of Guardians with 3/3 air upgrades – eats through anything!) is done and I go straight for the jugular, only taking out the Fleet Beacon before, as it's on the way anyway. And if my first attack had failed, I'd have had massive Sunken lines and unlimited rebuild potential to fall back on…

Mission 6:
Again, cancel the intro right when all four SCVs have finished their first mining cycle and start with 32 extra minerals in the bank.
Kill the mine on the low ground with the tank, unsiege it and move it back into the mineral line, where it will be safe from all attacks. Send all the other units to defend on the high ground. Also kill the high ground mine, nothing but trouble with those things.
At 6 workers, wall-in the right-side choke between the cliff and mineral line with two Depots, leaving enough space for a Bunker.
Next get some more SCVs and, as soon as reources allow, said bunker, some extra Marines, a Refinery and an Ebay. When ebay is finished, get two missile turrets on the low ground. get a bunker on the High ground and wall it in with a factory, Accademy and Depot. First tank on the high ground to kill the Sunken colony, then move it to the other tank on the low ground, get upgrades (U238-Shells, +1 Infantry attack and Goska's detection), build Marines, start killing the base to the right with the first control group of M&M/Goska. Get the gas, defend it with Bunker, 2 turrets (one in mineral line to stop Mutas, one at the Bunker against Lurkers) and some Depots (wall-in the Bunker). Get 2 or three more Tanks to defend the base and Factory on the high ground, constantly keep upgrading and move to the left. The base in the bottom left has all the minerals ever needed. From there just arc around counterclockwise, killing the purple Zerg, which is considerably easier than going the other way around due to not having to cross that tight bridge against three Sunkens and the easily acquired resources. Finally kill white…

Note:
The same trick I used in mission 5 to get unlimited resources also works in missions 3, 4 and 6, but I don't think it makes much of a difference for those missions.
In mission 6, the mineral-reset locations for the 6 O'clock base are offset one tile to the south, by the way.

Agreed and already on the list.

The increased defense garrison should address some of this, and making the protoss actually defend themselves should help as well.

Map 2 will have increased resources globally while also beefing up the defense garrisons, so it should make the battles a little more prolonged/interactive and put less of an emphasis on mutalisks.

Though this isn't a huge difference, I may remove 2-3 from each position.

Mission 4's speedrun strat will be addressed. It's the product of poor level design for repeat playthroughs (and in general), though it makes for a pretty tense first-time run assuming you're not above average in the skill department. I'll be adding more resources to the patches as well.

Yeah, this is a big oversight. I planned on adding a time-sensitive activation for red, but in addition I'll have it detect x amount of expansions, to be safe. The resource persists will also have a "player 1 bring 0 hatchery" condition, which I'll make sure to do across all maps.

Thanks for the visual aid. I'll probably throw in a few more reavers/carriers to the end-game loops of red/blue to help break static defenses, though with your infinite resources and delayed red/blue activations (upper blue only activates when his lower base is dead) it probably made it so the AI never got to those scripts.

Dunno if you ever noticed, but in map 6, if you never expand more than 1 time (I think), you have to use tanks to kill a white barracks in the top right corner. That was a funny issue that I found out about a few weeks ago.

Maybe I can help with your next project.

What would be nice is if you could make the AI build Archons when the player has a certain number of Mutas, or something along those lines.
Is there any way to privately contact you? I'd like to delve deeper into the issue of AI scripting.




My suggestion for this would be similar to what I suggested for the 6th mission: Have some Scourge hunt all air units that enter the top half of the map before certain conditions are met. Maybe add a ring of Spores around the Cerebrate as well, to avoid fast run-throughs with single Mutas or Scourge.


make it player 1 bring at least 1 Drone to deactivate the Mineral refresh and trigger the AI, just to make sure distance mining isn't an option either.
You should also move the RedTown]Trip location up a bit so taking the free gas base does not preemptively trigger the red AI.

Yes, maybe make the cyan get more aggressive as well, and make attack waves bigger. Single Carriers/Reavers and groups of a handful of units don't do anything against clusters of static defense.


I haven't looked into the function of those buildings yet, but I spotted them on my first playthrough. I would put them somewhere in the top left, where they are out of sight from the player. It's just odd having them where they are now.

Yeah this will be possible, though I typically dislike having the AI hard counter the player without first being interacted with, so I'll probably just add a scaling number of dragoon and eventually archon (blue) or scout (red) calls for the enemies.

The scourge idea is pretty good. If I preplace enough of them, the AI will treat them as guards and reinforce them to that area after they're lost, so I can have a location over the hot zone that tells them to go on strategic suicide missions or patrol to the nearest set of enemy targets using the make these units patrol/set generic command target scripts. Or better yet, use the new issue_order plugin to target all air units in an air-only location. Additional spores should be possible as well.

Good ideas. I think that the x amount of expansions trip for red would be enough, so I can comfortably move the location up a bit.

I think I used guard_all on white (maybe not) but overlords patrol between base structures commonly and would just fly halfway across the map and look bizarre if the structures were in the top left. I have an AI plugin that resolves this issue now via deaths, so that'll be taken care of in the update. 1 structure is removed for each expansion, and a notowns_jump command checks for that structure and jumps to a block that adds extra hydralisks to the attack waves, as a way to make white competitive regardless of the number of expos you take. Not a clean way of implementing it, and now that there are better ways, I'll clean it up.

Btw, on mission 6 you get to fly your factory by telling it to build a machineshop on a different location, which then allows you to reach and kill the entire north west part of the map if you wanted to. A fix could be to create a no-fly-zone. (I've seen that feature in a couple of UMS, where your building just explodes once it flies over/into the no-fly-zone)

Noted. I'll remove the liftoff order from the factory and see if that fixes it.