Welcome to Guns for Hire

Guns for hire is a hero/minion party type RPG with support for up to 5 players. This map is in essence a rebuild of the SC1 RPG type map. You start the map by selecting a hero. This hero gains levels over the course of the game, while also collecting minerals for hiring mercenaries. For difficult tasks gas will be rewarded, allowing you to advance the rank of your class. Gas can also be spent to hire additional heroes as mercenaries. I do have a story planned out, but it is not implemented yet.

Updates:

0.0.3

The current implementation of this project is primarily a sandbox-type gauntlet thing designed for testing unit balance. Even though this is still early in development, I'd still call this version playable; I've spent way to much time building a test environment that will never exist in the final program. Granted, the sandbox based nature of the current test leads itself to easy cheating, but if you take just one rank 2 hero through the gauntlet, the game offers a decent challenge. As of right now the only things really implemented are the first two ranks of the hero classes. Any comments are most welcome.

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TO PLAY:
This gauntlet is balanced around the rank 2 heros.
To allow the lower portion of the map to work, the heros on the gauntlet are not spawned by default. You will notice a zergling in the gauntlet area on the top half of the map. He has four abilities. use reset heros, then spawn xp 3 times. Choose one of the heros and kill the three lings that spawned to the right of your ling. You should be level 3 now and able to choose a class. Pick one, and start the gauntlet.

The eliminate units button will kill off all of your units to reset your play. Reset enemies will clear and respawn the enemies. These two abilities will allow you to reset the testing environment.

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Continued description:

Cash resources:
At the start of the mission you will have 100 minerals, a hero and 6 supplies. Each hero takes 4 supplies. There is enough cash to purchase a medic or a pair of escort units. Each kill will yield minerals (to be implemented) progression kills/story events will reward small amounts of gas. Minerals can be spent to increase supply. Additional supply is available as a gas sink. (Tentative)
Hero progression:
Heroes are divided into 4 classes, each with three ranks. Once heroes reach certain level, they are able to spend gas and minerals to advance to a new rank. At rank 2 they are able to update based on a character trait (intelligence or strength, and at rank 3, a profession (fighter or scholar) Current level caps and rank upgrade levels are as follows: (note level index from 0)
Rank level required to upgrade max level
1 2 4
2 3 6
3 n/a 9 (tentative)
Levels after the upgrade point will require much more xp to reach, with r2 level 6 being particularly difficult to obtain. Currently, all levels are very each to obtain for testing purposes.
Attributes:
There are 4 attributes in the game, power, stamina, agility, and psych. Each level heros gain stats (7 at r1; 9 at r2; 10 at r3) distributed according to the strengths of the class. Items may be implemented at a later time to add additional stats. The stats are as follows.
Power adds 5% damage
Stamina adds 5% +10 hp and .1 hp/sec
Agility adds 3% attack speed and 2% movement speed
Psych adds 5% +10 shields and .25 shield/sec
Heros:
The 4 hero classes are Gunslinger, Grenadier, Mage and Berserker
Each class is somewhat different from the others. The
Each class will (hopefully) have a unique playstyle associated with them. (particularly at rank 3) Each hero starts with one ability at rank 1. They will gain an additional ability at rank 2, and most will get two more at rank 3. Here are the classes as planned:
Base R2 strength R2 Intelligence
Gunslinger Soldier Ranger
Grenadier Rhino Rocketeer
Mage Tempest Warlock
Berzerker Warrior Hunter

Base R3 Fighter R3 Scholar
Soldier Goliath Suppressor
Ranger Striker Sniper
Rhino Grizzly Hercules
Rocketeer Wolverine Raptor
Tempest Justicar Vengeance
Warlock Shade Sorcerer
Warrior Juggernaut Flayer
Hunter Shifter Plaugebringer

Yes, that is 28 classes…with 44 custom (mostly at least) ability. I have 12 of them implemented currently, all of the rank 1 and rank 2. I have worked a bit on balancing and believe I have balance within 20% for rank 2.
All classes are capable of hitting ground and air units, though some better than others. The mage and gunslingers are generally better at AA. The fighter and grenadier classes are, in general, tougher. The grenadier and gunslinger classes are generally longer range.
Rank 2 generally chooses the overall path the unit will follow. Strong heroes are more focused on armor and health, while intelligent ones will rely more on skirmishing. For rank 3, fighters will concentrate on offensive power, while scholars will focus on ailibties. This leads to the following archetypes.
Strong fighter: warrior
heavy unit designed around absorbing and dishing out damage
Strong scholar: paladin
Heavy unit with somewhat more defensive aimed abilities
Intelligent fighter: ranger
Generally this class will be very specialized and relies on its abilities to truly shine
Intelligent Scholar: mage
This class will be a caster of sorts, relying on abilities to do much of their damage.

Classes:
For now I will only list the rank 1 and 2 classes here.
Gunslinger: marine, gauss rifle
Fast unit with stimpack. focuses on agilty.
Grenadier: marauder, grenade launcher (now hits air)
Heavy unit with slow hitting weapon. Quick shot ability launches a grenade at ground targets, power and stamina focused
Mage: zealot, energy beams
Shielded unit. Medium range channeled attack. Has Focus Power ability, allowing attacks to drain shields from damage dealt at the cost of damage psych and power focused
Berzerker: zergling, claws, needle spines for air
Melee unit. Uses berserk ability to gain speed and damage at the cost of armor and health. Balanced stats with slight focus on stamina
Soldier: marine, gauss rifle
Gains grenade ability and agility focus. Grenade is a ground targeted aoe attack with a travel time. Very fast and fairly powerful
Ranger: ghost , canister rifle
Gains snipe ability and greater focus on power. High single target damage and good skirmishing abilities
Rhino: thor, standard weapons (ground weapon slowed)
Very heavy unit, slower then others, stamina based. Gains Impulse Discharge ability, allowing the rhino to knock away melee units temporarily. Quick shot ability gains aoe damage
Rocketeer: marauder, standard weaponry
Slow hitting heavy unit. Now deals aoe damage. High burst capability. Rocket strike ability similar to grenade, but with a cast time and set dely. Power focus
Tempest: zealot, energy beams
Somewhat heavy unit. Middle range attacker with high shield. Psych focus. Meteor ability deals unit targeted aoe damage (there are enough ground targeted aoe abilitied already)
Warlock: high templar, psi beams
High power attacker. Short range aoe attacker with psi storm ability.
Warrior : roach, claws(slow), acid for air(fast)
Heavy melee unit. Stamina/power focus. Has an acid burst ability causing nearby enemies to take damage over time in addition to taking damage when attacking.
Hunter: hydralisk, claws(fast), spines for air
Medium melee unit. Focuses more on hit and run. Ability putrid blob creates proximity mines

Progress:
Hero design 40%
Gameplay design 5%
Terrain design 0%
Story Development 20%
This map is far from complete, in fact barely started. I do feel I’ve reached a point where I can at least show off what I have. As this is in very early development, a lot is still up in the air, and a lot of materials present are placeholder. Like almost everything that isn’t a hero. As it is in testing mode, unlimited cash is provided.
Current (placeholder) map info:
Lower left: base camp ah la sc1. Will not be used exactly as shown, but probably similar. Heros are available for selection on the left. You can only have one hero of each class ( 4 total) if all your heroes die, you get a free one. (no res for now) Lower left, kill zone for freeing supplies. Lower right, guns for hire shop (placeholder name) contains medic, apc and hero, in addition to token assault units. Little xp lings present if necessary for power leveling for testing purposes.
Lower right corner contains area for leveling heros prior to giving them to player control. (effective if r1 level 4 so not all additional xp is wasted)
Upper left contains the gauntlet proving ground. This is a very placeholder test for testing and balancing r2 units. It is a bit heavy on anti-armor units. Its designed to be used with r2 units.
To use:
1st button resets the enemies
2nd button kills off all your units
3rd button gives you one of each hero and a medic
4th button creates an xpling
To start form rank 2, create 2 xplings, kill them with a hero and choose your trait.

Known issues:
Almost all graphical
Medic heal beams non-visible
Rocket Strike launch animation too slow, does not disappear before rocket lands
Rhino aa attack’s launch point is too high
Acid blast seems to not appear correctly on some computers, I have not seen this myself
Putrid blob’s creation has an additional beam launched from air unit height.

Any comments/suggestions are more than welcome. I’m looking to create something rather good here, something both reminiscent of the good old sc1 rpg maps, and dynamic and replayable with memorable classes.

Guns For Hire RPG