Suggestion [Township] Turret suggestion/ revamp

[Beau_Nearh]

Right, before you start reading the post id like to say a few things. For starters this post is going to be huge, because of this please only give feedback if you have read it fully. If I am unclear within certain parts, please point it out so I can answer your question as well as edit the original post for future readers.

Turret customization

Just as the title suggests, this is going to be a suggestion relating to the customization of the potential use of turrets within hero stronghold. The depth that these turrets can be taken to could be amazing and really define hero stronghold to other plugins such as towny (depending on if it’s possible code wise that is). Originally, there was your bog standard arrow turret. You created the turret using the specific blocks needed for that sub-region as well as fed it arrows. This turret would then shoot any player/ mob that doesn’t belong to that region/ super region (basically anything that isn’t a town member) for x amount of damage. Each turret will have a set radius (range) in which it can shoot targets.

Now that the back story is out the way, I’d really like to really revamp the whole turret system. I’d do this by giving it a “tower defence” twist by allowing players to customize certain turrets to do specific roles. This would include the projectile the turret uses and the payload/ effect that the turret applies.

Each different projectile would have a different effect/ stat. For example, using arrows as the turrets projectile would just hit the target and affect that specific target. However if the projectile that was being used was a fire charge, it could create an AOE effect once hitting the target. I’m going to produce a table/ list (Can’t help my bad formatting okay!) to show possible up-sides that each projectile has as well as its downsides.

Quick note; MF = Mana flux. I’ll talk about this further down the post.

Projectile(s)

Projectile; Arrow
Effect of projectile; Effects a single target, needs line of sight
Energy cost per use; 15MF per use
Upsides; Average firing speed, large range, has 15% chance to not use energy to fire
Downsides; Has a 20% chance to use two arrow(s) when firing, doesn’t penetrate armor, can only target one player/ mob at a time
Available tier(s); tier 1, tier 2, tier 3.

Projectile; Snow ball
Effect of projectile; Effects a single target, shoots in bursts of 4
Energy cost per use; 35MF per burst
Upsides; Shoots in bursts of 4, has a medium range, can target more than one target (up to 4)
Downsides; uses more energy for each target that is being targeted (+5 MF per target)
Available tier(s); Tier 1, tier 2.

Projectile; Fire charge
Effect of projectile; Creates an AOE effect upon impact on target, needs line of sight
Energy cost per use; 75MF per use
Upsides; Can apply more than one effect to target (up to 2 effects)
Downsides; Has a short range, very slow firing speed, has 15% chance to use double the regents needed for that effect
Available tier(s); Tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, tier 4.

Projectile; Ender pearl
Effect of projectile; Effects single targets, doesn’t need line of sight (think railgun/ sniper)
Energy cost per use; 100MF per use
Upsides; has a huge range, penetrates armour
Downsides; can only target one player/ mob at a time, extremely slow firing speed
Available tier(s); tier 1

Projectile; Egg
Effect of projectile; Creates an AOE on the turret
Energy cost per use; 200MF per use
Upsides; Can apply buffs within a radius of the turret
Downsides; Effects do not stack, effects wear off after x amount of time, extremely slow firing speed, has 45% chance to use double the energy required to fire
Available tier(s); All buffs

Note; All the distances and effects that each projectile can apply will be directly affected by balance issues. This is just a rough outline of possible projectiles.

Effect tiers & Buffs
Now onto the possible payloads each projectile could carry. Depending on what available tier of effect the projectile can use will directly affect the play style of the turret as well as what’s possible with certain projectiles (also to try and help balance it all out). To use a certain effect/ buff, there will have to be a certain regent used as well as the projectile to give the desired effect. Example; I want to apply poison to an arrow turret. I would put in the turret arrows (the projectiles) as well as spider eyes (effect regent). The higher the tier of effect, the more regents would be used. Eg; It costs 3 zombie flesh and a projectile to apply a hunger II effect on the target, to apply a hunger IV effect (higher tier), it would cost 6 zombie flesh.

Tier 1
Slowness II. Regent = 2 string
Mining fatigue I. Regent = 2 bone(s)
Damage boost I (extra 15 physical damage). Regent = 2 redstone

Tier 2
Weakness I. Regent = 2 brown mushroom(s)
Hunger II. Regent = 3 zombie flesh
Poison I = 2 spider eye(s)
Damage boost II (Extra 25 physical damage). Regent = 4 redstone

Tier 3
Blindness II. Regent = 4 ink sack(s)
Hunger IV. Regent = 6 zombie flesh
Slowness IV. Regent = 8 string
Damage boost III (Extra 35 physical damage). Regent = 8 redstone

Tier 4
Wither III. Regent = 6 gunpoweder
Mining fatigue IV. Regent = 8 bone(s)
Nausea III. Regent = 6 red mushroom(s)

Tier 5
Weakness IV. Regent = 8 brown mushroom(s)
Damage boost IV (Extra 50 physical damage). Regent = 16 redstone

Note; All regents are possible examples. My aim is to give more use to ‘worthless’ items to an extent.

Buff(s)

Right, now onto buffs. As it is, potions are widely used throughout both servers but I still feel that they aren’t used as much as they should. There seems to be no urgency to acquiring potions. So, because of this, each buff that the turret can apply (a few are excluded) will need the following regents to apply that effect within an AOE of the turret (AOE radius will depend on balance). Here is a list of buffs;
+ Speed III. Regent = 2 speed potion(s)
+ Haste II. Regent = 16 sugar
+ Strength I. Regent = 2 strength potion(s)
+ Instant health III = 2 health potion(s) + 1 apple
+ Resistance I = 8 obsidian
+ Fire resistance = 1 fire resistance potion
+ Health boost II = 6 golden apple(s)
+ Possible additional attribute stats (not 100% sure on this).

Mana flux (MF)

So, adding all these changes to turrets could lead to raids becoming impossible as all this does is add benefits to turrets. This is where energy costs (MF costs) come into play. Originally, there were only two ways to disable a turret.

1. Make the turret use up all of its arrows (this was very tedious and hard)
2. Or practically charge the turret down and take out all the arrows before it can kill you

This became very hard once players were setting up grids of turrets covering huge areas (as well as other turrets). As well as this, they were relatively easy to set up as well as keep running (just throw a few stacks of arrows in and you're sound). So, my idea would be to introduce a power grid system that powers these turrets. If there isn’t enough energy within the system, the turrets will not be able to fire.

This change would then push towns into creating an infrastructure good enough to support the defences. To set up a power grid system, I would introduce two new sub-regions. These regions would be called; “MF generator” & “MF Capacitor”. The generator will produce x amount of MF per y amount of time (maybe using glow stone dust as a regent) and the MF capacitor will store this energy within the grid.

Now, these two new sub-regions would act as a potential target for raiders. If they want to gain access to the town without being destroyed by the turrets, they first have to destroy/ disable the power grid so that the turrets cannot fire. I’m unsure how to implement the ability to sneak past turrets to gain access to these new sub-regions so I was thinking of giving a certain class (maybe ninja) the ability to be undetected by turrets for x amount of time (would come in the form of a skill with a huge CD).

Thanks for reading, I'm glad to answer any questions!

@Multitallented

 

[Multitallented]

That's a lot of thought...

I'm not even sure we would be using turrets as they require player location checks which could be taxing on the server.

I also had the idea of having a barracks that automatically spawns mobs to defend against raiders.

 

[Beau_Nearh]

That's a lot of thought...

I'm not even sure we would be using turrets as they require player location checks which could be taxing on the server.

I also had the idea of having a barracks that automatically spawns mobs to defend against raiders.

Oh. I didn't realise (or even think) about player location checks. Well, that's a nail in the coffin but mobs spawning would be quite cool. Would you have it as just standard mobs spawn or will they have skills/ special abilities? Also, will those mobs ever turn on region members?

 

[Irishman81]

Right, before you start reading the post id like to say a few things. For starters this post is going to be huge, because of this please only give feedback if you have read it fully. If I am unclear within certain parts, please point it out so I can answer your question as well as edit the original post for future readers.

Turret customization

Just as the title suggests, this is going to be a suggestion relating to the customization of the potential use of turrets within hero stronghold. The depth that these turrets can be taken to could be amazing and really define hero stronghold to other plugins such as towny (depending on if it’s possible code wise that is). Originally, there was your bog standard arrow turret. You created the turret using the specific blocks needed for that sub-region as well as fed it arrows. This turret would then shoot any player/ mob that doesn’t belong to that region/ super region (basically anything that isn’t a town member) for x amount of damage. Each turret will have a set radius (range) in which it can shoot targets.

Now that the back story is out the way, I’d really like to really revamp the whole turret system. I’d do this by giving it a “tower defence” twist by allowing players to customize certain turrets to do specific roles. This would include the projectile the turret uses and the payload/ effect that the turret applies.

Each different projectile would have a different effect/ stat. For example, using arrows as the turrets projectile would just hit the target and affect that specific target. However if the projectile that was being used was a fire charge, it could create an AOE effect once hitting the target. I’m going to produce a table/ list (Can’t help my bad formatting okay!) to show possible up-sides that each projectile has as well as its downsides.

Quick note; MF = Mana flux. I’ll talk about this further down the post.

Projectile(s)

Projectile; Arrow
Effect of projectile; Effects a single target, needs line of sight
Energy cost per use; 15MF per use
Upsides; Average firing speed, large range, has 15% chance to not use energy to fire
Downsides; Has a 20% chance to use two arrow(s) when firing, doesn’t penetrate armor, can only target one player/ mob at a time
Available tier(s); tier 1, tier 2, tier 3.

Projectile; Snow ball
Effect of projectile; Effects a single target, shoots in bursts of 4
Energy cost per use; 35MF per burst
Upsides; Shoots in bursts of 4, has a medium range, can target more than one target (up to 4)
Downsides; uses more energy for each target that is being targeted (+5 MF per target)
Available tier(s); Tier 1, tier 2.

Projectile; Fire charge
Effect of projectile; Creates an AOE effect upon impact on target, needs line of sight
Energy cost per use; 75MF per use
Upsides; Can apply more than one effect to target (up to 2 effects)
Downsides; Has a short range, very slow firing speed, has 15% chance to use double the regents needed for that effect
Available tier(s); Tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, tier 4.

Projectile; Ender pearl
Effect of projectile; Effects single targets, doesn’t need line of sight (think railgun/ sniper)
Energy cost per use; 100MF per use
Upsides; has a huge range, penetrates armour
Downsides; can only target one player/ mob at a time, extremely slow firing speed
Available tier(s); tier 1

Projectile; Egg
Effect of projectile; Creates an AOE on the turret
Energy cost per use; 200MF per use
Upsides; Can apply buffs within a radius of the turret
Downsides; Effects do not stack, effects wear off after x amount of time, extremely slow firing speed, has 45% chance to use double the energy required to fire
Available tier(s); All buffs

Note; All the distances and effects that each projectile can apply will be directly affected by balance issues. This is just a rough outline of possible projectiles.

Effect tiers & Buffs
Now onto the possible payloads each projectile could carry. Depending on what available tier of effect the projectile can use will directly affect the play style of the turret as well as what’s possible with certain projectiles (also to try and help balance it all out). To use a certain effect/ buff, there will have to be a certain regent used as well as the projectile to give the desired effect. Example; I want to apply poison to an arrow turret. I would put in the turret arrows (the projectiles) as well as spider eyes (effect regent). The higher the tier of effect, the more regents would be used. Eg; It costs 3 zombie flesh and a projectile to apply a hunger II effect on the target, to apply a hunger IV effect (higher tier), it would cost 6 zombie flesh.

Tier 1
Slowness II. Regent = 2 string
Mining fatigue I. Regent = 2 bone(s)
Damage boost I (extra 15 physical damage). Regent = 2 redstone

Tier 2
Weakness I. Regent = 2 brown mushroom(s)
Hunger II. Regent = 3 zombie flesh
Poison I = 2 spider eye(s)
Damage boost II (Extra 25 physical damage). Regent = 4 redstone

Tier 3
Blindness II. Regent = 4 ink sack(s)
Hunger IV. Regent = 6 zombie flesh
Slowness IV. Regent = 8 string
Damage boost III (Extra 35 physical damage). Regent = 8 redstone

Tier 4
Wither III. Regent = 6 gunpoweder
Mining fatigue IV. Regent = 8 bone(s)
Nausea III. Regent = 6 red mushroom(s)

Tier 5
Weakness IV. Regent = 8 brown mushroom(s)
Damage boost IV (Extra 50 physical damage). Regent = 16 redstone

Note; All regents are possible examples. My aim is to give more use to ‘worthless’ items to an extent.

Buff(s)

Right, now onto buffs. As it is, potions are widely used throughout both servers but I still feel that they aren’t used as much as they should. There seems to be no urgency to acquiring potions. So, because of this, each buff that the turret can apply (a few are excluded) will need the following regents to apply that effect within an AOE of the turret (AOE radius will depend on balance). Here is a list of buffs;
+ Speed III. Regent = 2 speed potion(s)
+ Haste II. Regent = 16 sugar
+ Strength I. Regent = 2 strength potion(s)
+ Instant health III = 2 health potion(s) + 1 apple
+ Resistance I = 8 obsidian
+ Fire resistance = 1 fire resistance potion
+ Health boost II = 6 golden apple(s)
+ Possible additional attribute stats (not 100% sure on this).

Mana flux (MF)

So, adding all these changes to turrets could lead to raids becoming impossible as all this does is add benefits to turrets. This is where energy costs (MF costs) come into play. Originally, there were only two ways to disable a turret.

1. Make the turret use up all of its arrows (this was very tedious and hard)
2. Or practically charge the turret down and take out all the arrows before it can kill you

This became very hard once players were setting up grids of turrets covering huge areas (as well as other turrets). As well as this, they were relatively easy to set up as well as keep running (just throw a few stacks of arrows in and you're sound). So, my idea would be to introduce a power grid system that powers these turrets. If there isn’t enough energy within the system, the turrets will not be able to fire.

This change would then push towns into creating an infrastructure good enough to support the defences. To set up a power grid system, I would introduce two new sub-regions. These regions would be called; “MF generator” & “MF Capacitor”. The generator will produce x amount of MF per y amount of time (maybe using glow stone dust as a regent) and the MF capacitor will store this energy within the grid.

Now, these two new sub-regions would act as a potential target for raiders. If they want to gain access to the town without being destroyed by the turrets, they first have to destroy/ disable the power grid so that the turrets cannot fire. I’m unsure how to implement the ability to sneak past turrets to gain access to these new sub-regions so I was thinking of giving a certain class (maybe ninja) the ability to be undetected by turrets for x amount of time (would come in the form of a skill with a huge CD).

Thanks for reading, I'm glad to answer any questions!

@Multitallented

It's a decent idea, but I would never want to fight anyone while I have slowness 4 and nausea 3 indefinitely

 

[0xNaomi]

Turret code is pretty similar to that of FirestrikeTotem, sans homing and endercrystal. All I got to put here.
That, and sounds like a pain to keep any sort of turret alive between restarts.

 

[Beau_Nearh]

It's a decent idea, but I would never want to fight anyone while I have slowness 4 and nausea 3 indefinitely

Yeah, that's my whole point. I want to give well set up towns the feel of "fort knox" and force players to actually plan a raid rather than just showing up swinging. Plus if I was hit with those effects I would do a runner unless im with a big raiding clan :')

 

[Beau_Nearh]

Turret code is pretty similar to that of FirestrikeTotem, sans homing and endercrystal. All I got to put here.
That, and sounds like a pain to keep any sort of turret alive between restarts.

Saying that, would you be able to give turrets health much like the ender dragon? Maybe we cold have it so each turret has an ender crystal floating above and it can withstand x amount of damage before being disabled for y amount of time

 

[Irishman81]

Yeah, that's my whole point. I want to give well set up towns the feel of "fort knox" and force players to actually plan a raid rather than just showing up swinging. Plus if I was hit with those effects I would do a runner unless im with a big raiding clan :')

I thought we were trying to promote raids? I don't even think there is a lot of raiding this map as there was in previous ones. Rarely now do I even see more than 3 people from one town go to another. I feel like if this was put in, it would just decrease the incentive to raid even more.

 

[Multitallented]

While I like the idea of making raids more thought out, the current suggestion would already do this. Think back to the second town you owned Beau where you had turrets just about everywhere. The raids still came, but they stayed away from the turrets. People would still get killed occasionally on their way to the farms or mines. Having a limited number of turrets is fine (especially if they can run out of ammo or be killed).

What if you had a limited number of permanent turrets that can run out of ammo and other turrets that self-destruct 5 minutes after you create them?

 

[Beau_Nearh]

I thought we were trying to promote raids? I don't even think there is a lot of raiding this map as there was in previous ones. Rarely now do I even see more than 3 people from one town go to another. I feel like if this was put in, it would just decrease the incentive to raid even more.

Well my thought would be to try and push raid's to being more organised. As it is, it doesn't take much for a party of 5 to charge into a base without a thought

 

[Beau_Nearh]

While I like the idea of making raids more thought out, the current suggestion would already do this. Think back to the second town you owned Beau where you had turrets just about everywhere. The raids still came, but they stayed away from the turrets. People would still get killed occasionally on their way to the farms or mines. Having a limited number of turrets is fine (especially if they can run out of ammo or be killed).

What if you had a limited number of permanent turrets that can run out of ammo and other turrets that self-destruct 5 minutes after you create them?

I agree with the limited number of turrets, I also do like the temp turret idea. What would your thoughts be when scaling it to the other permanent turrets damage wise ect?

 

[Multitallented]

You should check out this thread: http://herocraftonline.com/main/threads/pvp-arrowturret.54915/
And this one: http://herocraftonline.com/main/threads/pvp-temp-turret.54899/

 

[Beau_Nearh]

You should check out this thread: http://herocraftonline.com/main/threads/pvp-arrowturret.54915/
And this one: http://herocraftonline.com/main/threads/pvp-temp-turret.54899/

The stats for both the turrets are looking pretty solid, reminds me of sentries in TF2 a little bit (which is good). The self destruct timer may be a little too short but I suppose if its a problem, it will come up within testing. Also, will the temp-turrets be limited to personal regions + wilderness? I could see using these turrets while raiding a town being a little too strong (again, it would come up in testing and is dependant on the final stats). Last thing, will the temp-turrets be limited to x amount per player and/or y amount of turrets within a certain amount of space (like 15 blocks within each other.).

Other wise, looks great and I cant wait to see this in use