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oh, of course! thanks to the various ways the macro is simplified (repeat queue, B hotkey, etc), the tech tree can and should be more complex I've seen the various testers and the players who have checked the debut mission out so far take wildly varied approaches to the macro game. I anticipate you'll see those problem areas I described while the tech tree is in its unfinished state when you eventually get the chance to give this debut mission a shot, but it's hopefully also much more interesting than vanilla d2k's handling of upgrades and teching up, even at this juncture eh, that's not too difficult, if ya ask me... if a mission is meant to spotlight a certain kind of unit, and those units are already balanced with certain roles in mind, then we already know where that role shines. the mission just needs adjustment to emphasize that role. frankly, the tougher part is getting a player to realize "this unit is imba on this mission" because everybody just spams Troopers, Quads and Combat Tanks. xD before yelling at me for locking Rocket Turrets behind T3 because they're OP and very much desired on hard mode. ...maybe with a new faction in play we'll see players pick up what I'm laying down more often, ya know? lol not that I want to make that unit the only viable answer on its associated mission or whatever. that's the other tough part. Starcraft 2 leaned a bit too heavily into that, in some places. some very one-note missions that wind up feeling like a glorified tutorial. I get the sentiment that campaigns may be meant to lead the player onto the ladder or something, but for those who want only to enjoy the campaign, I've gotta take special care in gearing a mission towards a certain kind of unit so all the other stuff the player has been picking up still applies. better experience that way regarding the multiplayer thing: that's unfortunately nothing more than theory until they get access to the new features we've got in single-player that make stuff like this new faction's units possible. I hear they're making good progress on it, but who knows when they'll formally wrap that up. the theory can be important for making a satisfying balance in single-player, but it ultimately only applies to single-player even if we do wind up with some overpowered stuff though, uhh... I mean, RA2 is unbalanced as hell and still very popular just cuz its wacky roster of units is so much fun. so, while balance is absolutely a consideration as you can see from... all of the above, and all to follow, it does actually take a backseat to fun factor and rule-of-cool. cool / fun new thing comes first, attempt to balance cool / fun thing comes second  that's a good approach. I went a bit of a different direction with maps like S02V1 back in SS... that was balanced as a 'skillgate mission,' a tougher mission that appears early on just to ask the player, "hey, are you comfortable with the difficulty level? if not, turn it down. if so, carry on." that sort of thing takes players off-guard, but helps shape their experience in the rest of the campaign in a more positive light. or so that's the intent. it worked out well for a lot of players who, after butting heads with S02V1, started experimenting more on the later maps and discovering subtleties to the submods that really helped them survive in ways they may not have found if not for S02V1 frontloading some pain in their faces I had spotlighty missions too. like, S06V2 very much so encourages the use of stuff like Siege Tanks or Duelist Tanks. it was more about missions like S02V1 though, strategically raising or lowering the difficulty level to gauge or tamper with the player's expectations, or for story reasons doing things a bit more traditionally in some respects this time around, I don't think there will be maps like that where the enemy has high/end tech early on, like on S02V1. specifically because it involves a new faction and players are 100% not going to be familiar with it from vanilla. I'll thus probably be doing it that way, spotlighting units as they become available through subtle mission design tricks to encourage the player to try them out in favorable conditions and understand those favorable conditions. smoother difficulty curve. strategically-placed difficulty spikes can do a campaign favors, but they're not for every campaign

Have you any thoughts on a tech tree? How will it progress? Sorry to say, the techtree needs to be balanced as well. And this might be the hardest job. Since you introduce a player to a new unit. The mission might depend on that particular unit. And the multiplayer techtree should be balanced as well. I think, the latter is even more important than the single player campaign. Because a new unit might actually be over powered for its first job. Just for the fun of it It is how I introduced some of my units in the past. "o my, we don't have enough resources for dealing with the bunkers. Let's get 1 artillery unit, we know it is expensive, but that attack range of 13 is more than enough to protect it from wandering survivors".

thanks very much!! ah, I don't like to restrict the player too much  even on missions with pure defense objectives, I've gotta account for if the player's gonna be aggressive and attack the enemy and stuff. quite a few players have been taken off guard on S02V1 by trying to beat up the high-tech enemy lol there are some exceptions, of course. like, S02V2 was designed to introduce hero units in a controlled environment, to teach the player to sacrifice ANYTHING to keep them alive, and show their strength without the macro game in the picture. that was only for like... 22.5k ticks or something? and I don't think we'll need missions like that in the next series. no hero units so yeah, defense-oriented missions, sure, but I gotta spice it up if it's pure defense, somehow xD ah yeah, and the Wings of Liberty campaign had that one with the supernova and the banshees and all that. terran buildings being able to pick up and wander the map was integral to that one. fun concept, very memorable it took the forefront in that mission though, whereas the natural progression of wandering the map for resources is, uhh... more of an encouraged course of action than a necessity. an underlying gameplay mechanic supporting the main gameplay loop, the focus remains on defeating the enemy. less, uhh... distinct, but hopefully more fun to be had with more flexibility on more missions. less linearity and stuff damn, mate. aye, I've lost some missions too. dang computers perhaps what I refer to as gimmicks are what you're referring to here as secondary objectives ^^ I would classify the end stage of S06V2 as being its secondary objective. the production goals on SBON2 are secondary objectives. perhaps 'xyz hero unit must survive' is more of a secondary objective than a gimmick even if it's all primary though, missions can remain interesting with a strong enough gameplay loop. I've replayed Halo: CE lots of times just because its gameplay loop is so well-conceived, despite its repetition in mission layout and stuff aye, that's the plan ^^ actually, that was chiefly what I was looking for in Kipp's test run of the variables example map in the thread I linked in the last post! he had to expand a bit to support his offensive, but wasn't overwhelmed by the enemy before he could do that. target hard mode balance achieved! and now I've got the data to go off of for future missions' designs. a factor in helping to balance this debut mission, despite it being very different from that variables example map didn't mean it was perfect from the get-go though. not that that was my fault... during this process, we discovered the AI on hard mode in d2k gets a x.75 modifier on its unit build rate, which was enough to screw up my calculations without an AI parameter-adjusting event using the index number of the assigned variable as opposed to the variable's stored value too. that also happened. what a headache xD after those problems were accounted for though, the theoretical balance I had been aiming for worked out perfectly. the testers reported it was quite manageable! thank goodness Klofkac really went all the way with enabling us mappers to do stuff ^^ impossible to overstate the meaning of his contributions aye. the variables example map was more dramatic on this front, allowing the player to start in the top right, bottom left or bottom right corners, so you'd get three very different ways to approach the rest of the map. this debut mission already introduces lotsa new units, not to mention the new environment, so the three start locations here just change the order in which you get the units you're meant to start with. the player gets an MCV at the same place on the debut mission no matter which start location was chosen oh, yeah  well, time will tell about the Keravnos. it's probably in a pretty good spot for an MBT, but some other units may need adjustment. the Diakotn for one feels weak, but with its low cost and some other stuff, maybe that's just fine. I already made some other adjustments, like to its armor type

I like your train of thoughts.  I like that you also considered balance around resource managment. But also allow for turtling. That is a very awesome approach. I am glad that you called them RTS enjoyers. It is true, campers on RTS are enjoying their line of defence. I had this in Warcraft 2, Starcraft and also in Tiberiun dawn and sun. Would be funny though, if you slip in 1 mission that requires the player to camp first for an hour or something. Like, being stuck in the mountains with limited resources that grow slowly overtime. I did something similar in regards to resources. Although resources were limited. And expansion should be done if you are an agressive player. A turtle player could camp. till the resources were depleted. Then all the forces should move. That kind of deal. That was a so called mission 8 I once made in Starcraft. (It is lost forever  )  In short, you could camp with the correct defenders. And for an attack, you could either repair/heal them almost indifinately. And after defeating 1 of the 2 bases, you got that expand. I literly made that mission with the goal in mind. Defeat 1 base, and you could spend the remaining resources entirely on only half your units. As for secondairy objectives. I feel like they should be there from time to time. Especially in later missions. But they should be there for adding a reward for the player, during the mission. Which would help the player. One such secondairy objective was often the capture of enemy structures in C&C td. But the resque of units or whatever, are also valuable options. Unless, you have secondairy objectives being part of the primairy one. Then it is simply all primairy though. Perhaps, when the campaign is almost done. You could test the different difficulties, together with the resource managment. Where on easy difficulty, expansion is not needed. On normal, recommended. And on hard, a nessesary objective. Something like that. It is very hard to achieve though. So, if you manage, you can consider it as a trophy as designer.  I will come back later on that editor. I never used it. But you mentioned it by name specifically. Once I have more time. And after playing the mission. I might ask for the other stuff.  Wow, you can allow the player to select their start location? That is awesome! I always liked that. Ehm. you mentioned theoratical balance at the end for multiplayer. I meant that theoratical balance is solely based on numbers and formula's. For all the other balances to grow on. An example would be that the bazooka infantry in C&C td costs 300. But testing already showed that they are too weak that way. Practically speaking, they needed more health or cost less. This was even the case for single player. In multiplayer, they are only used as anti air units at the start. They were....tested very late. You can see the result in tiberian sun. Where the Nod rocket soldier has A. more health, and B. costs 250.  

appreciated, mate. take your time ah, you're unfamiliar with Klofkac's editor? if you've used it at all since v2.0 or so, it'll be familiar enough. otherwise if you're talking, like, shai-hulud editing or something like that, Klofkac's editor will spoil you rotten with the amount of stuff we're capable of now. for reference, v2.0 is the most advanced version of the editor BEFORE new features were added, and remains suitable for co-op or multiplayer mapping. the vanilla-sized version of the tileset I published can be mapped with via v2.0. we're currently on v2.3! if ya got any questions about the editor, I should be able to answer 'em. I frequent the Landsraad Discord if you gotta rapid-fire 'em, otherwise I try to check back here. oh yeah, you're preachin' to the choir here I hope that's enough insight for ya into my thought process on the design front xD