Epic Cerberi

[Avatar]

First of all, I absolutely LOVE the new look for them...  they've been 'Necromongered' and it suits them beautifully.   Kudos to the effectsmeister, as I've had swarms of Overlords firing loads of those black, smokey shots at me and my framerate took no hit whatsoever.  If anything I'd like to see even more lightning between the bigger hover units and the ground, like the Nostromo in Matrix...  I shudder to think about fighting them at night...

I see the 'Cerberi Blight' that Sloar mentioned elsewhere, and he said he might do things like having Scions sprout grass and plants around their units, ("Elven", I think he said)   I'd bet GBD could arrange things so that the plants are world-specific, like the dust he set up for the BZC units.  I think that would rock...   Anyway, the Cerberi Blight is suffering severly from 'window blinds' effect, especially when viewed from a distance.  This makes me think it's an object...   For BZC I have the ancient Hadeans creating their own version of the 'blight', via an emitter with the same sort of planar effect that many of the weapons explosions use.  It only lasts for a few days, so a really long game might see them blink out...       This works VERY well and isn't subject to the blinds flickering bit, and it even allows it to grow as the game progresses.  It's a little odd around cliffs, but for the Epic maps I think it'd be ideal.

I've yet to see a Drath or Dominator, though...  are they still around???  Not that they need much help to harass me, but in the late game I owned them badly as EDF, who have some very powerful units in the Mastiff and Walker not to mention those lovely Beam and Missile towers... 

-Av-

[TheJamsh]

one thing id love to have is the original XSI's, or at least versions of them that will fit on regular maps.

BTW, whoever did some of the special effects, well bloody done! The tails on some of the flying craft for example, are brilliant, given me some more inspiration for crazy things. The electronic ground effects are a stroke of genius too! I love originality!

[Slaor]

Cheers Ken saw some screens and couldn't figure out how I did the trails initially.

My inspiration was obviously Matrix among other things, Cerberi fit the look really well. Just wait till RD gets the G66 stuff in and you get flocks of 30+ Talons flocking above your base cutting stuff apart like crazed Sentinels (try that against a full basewith plenty of GTs built, its utterly sick.) Citadel main weapon may do just that...

"Blight" is planar emits - shutter thing is due to the huge terrain grid, there may be filtering settings to fix it somewhere but I haven't got time to dig into it TBH - I gotta get back to MAD shortly, BSer is getting angsty. May even be able to somehow raise planar a little to stop clip, FE build effect did it.

Remember this is free for anybody here to toy with, so if you think it's worth making alterations then advise GBD who is more or less filling the project manager role. He has XSi's too.

Cerberi track tanks etc were retired, plot thing (they been hiding in Oort Cloud, tracks not big in micro-G, electro static fields work well tho...) and it always seemed a bit too low tech and generally Terrestrial for them. The big spider is the atank now, was gonna do an assault hover as well but did more space stuff instead (strike cannons anyone?)

[Red Devil]

Yes, i've always been meaning to applaud you for those tail effects.  The first time i saw them, i just stared in awe at them - then they killed me.

[Avatar]

LOL to Ken wondering about an effect...   very cool...  nothing like impressing the big guns.

30+ Talons = EVIL.  Bad Sloar!  Bad RD!  Down Boys!  Down!  

The blight is planar emits?  Wow...  I haven't seen the blinds bit with emits ever...  although Epic is totally new territory.   Hmmmm...   There are some weird behavior issues that make me think the terrain size is screwing up the AI's 'angle' calculations.  Things like deployed turrets sliding down hills and Constructors walking on air, GT's buried in sand dunes.  If that's the case there may be some render issues with the terrain angles as well.

Lol... I'm going to find you and hold you hostage until BSer updates the DLL Scriptor...  

If the large treaded/walking units have been retired well, np I guess, but the Cerberi are just begging for some big, end game monsters.  Maybe something along the lines of the Demon.  Something large, up in the air, and slow moving that's meant to eat your base if you let it get to you.   If the Matrix is part of your inspiration then think of the line of ships at the end of Revolutions...  the ones that spit Squiddies at our heroes as they approach the machine city.  

-Av-



 

[TheJamsh]

Planars still have issues from the DX9 change over... it does happen to me quite often, look at that video of the comet VLM missile and you can see it take place there. Seems more potent on angled terrain though...

One thing i have to say about the effects though, now that we can control them based on velocity/height and various other flags, it would be worth cutting dust trails and light-planars when craft exceed a certain height, or speed.

Overall i really do love the new Cerberi over the old, just think they look plain fantastic, the effects really polish them off. I have been wandering though, what DOES that citadel do? I opened a blank map and built a cerberi base to admire them all a little, but couldnt quite figure out what that thing did.

[AlectXares]

The only Issue I have is the freaking executioners. Is that really necessary for them to have a 1 hit kill on every vehicle?

I mean whenever I steal overlords and snipe. Sniping overlords and other cerberi vehicles besides demon is no problem. Getting out of the base, without those stupid **#&*@ executioners shooting me are the problem.

I hate them.

Anyways, Demon sniping point needs to be fixed. sniping the red dot doesn't kill the pilot for some weird reason.

[AHadley]

How difficult are the Evolved Cerberi likely to be to move back to the original terrain scale?

[Slaor]

Not difficult. FX tweaks would take longest but it's just a scaling thing.

Citadel isn't appropriately armed yet. It's gonna be a late game option for Cerberi - along with unit portals. It's gonna be like the Nexus in FE, better get some practise in. >)

Cerberi build tree is designed to eventually have 3 "heads"...to keep it balanced, player can choose 1 tech branch in mid/late game. Citadel or Portals or Shields/Jammers. I figure that be fair and makes them unpredictable. There'll be a few other major departures from standard kinda build progressions, mostly to balance such powerful units in players hand.

[Slaor]

Drath is still there but they attack rarely, they are hardcore in Epic, like the Martians on crack. You don't really want to see them...

[AlectXares]

that would be awesome if the Mechana could be included one day.

I would love to see a Mechana v.s 3 allied aliens, Scion, ISDF, Cerberi and possibly swarm.

The Beam Cannon should take care of the exterminators easily

[Avatar]

Ah, DX9 has good and bad then, eh?

I found out just now that the Drath are now 'Executioners', and have a nasty TEW...  (Tower-Eating-Weapon)     I keep some Mastiffs, Rocket Tanks, and Bombers to take care of them when they come after me.

My main beef with the Cerberi is that built-in Jammer in their base.  I have hordes of units at my disposal and I have to do all the work myself...      I'd love to be able to turn loose the hounds, but when I do they just wander over and get hammered by the Cerb defenses.  Oh well, a Walker and a dozen Service Trucks lets me sit there and take them apart while they eat my Sabres.   

-Av-

[Slaor]

Yeah, the jammer shield combo is the only branch currently implemented in AIPs - some really recent stuff wans't integrated cos we didn't want to delay release by any longer (diminishing returns ). Their new Level 3 Farcasters won't make your life much easier tho...

[jaydenbz2]

Hi Slaor, did you get some inspiration from the scrin on command and conquer 3 - tiberium wars, the cerberi citadel and the elctric effects remind me of them , just wondering??


-Jaydenbz2-

[Slaor]

Na mate, my RTS career began at Dune2 and peaked with Total Annihilation. C&C was always just Dune2 with a different wrapper, never got past a demo. I bought SupCom but never really got into it either - Spring TA is better anyhow.

Cerberi are Matrix meets the Martians.