LEGO Rock Raiders Rock Raiders: Couple'a questions.

[EvilNinjadude]

It's been ages since I played Rock Raiders, but there are some things that I wanted confirmed before I believe in them fully.

1. Slimy slugs will always invade, but only attack based on distance. (True?)

2. Out-Teleportation from damage is different from Out-Teleportation via button: Some named Raiders who died went lost after 'dying' in an incident involving Lava and Dumb AI. I want to know if this was what caused it.

3. Is there a Hard Limit to the number of Rock Raiders you have? After playing a crapton more of RTS games since RR, I want to know if there is a hard pop cap, or if I can just zerg the entire map...

4. I've had one or two instances where, in a map with Slimy Slugs and Rock Monsters, a RR shot a laser at a slug for 5 damage. Did I dream that, or why don't they always do it?

5. Monsterlets get stuck on Power paths. Anyone else have this problem?

6. Do energy Crystals drain over time? In one of those rescue missions, I was stuck on 1 crystal (which was silver) in the bank, until that suddenly disappeared and my base was left without power. Or was this something else?

7. Indecisive vehicle teleportation! When teleporting down a vehicle that would take one silver crystal from my bank, the game does not teleport it for a while, then suddenly cuts some power and teleports it down anyway. Can anyone explain this?

8. Ice Erosion! In the second-to-last mission (on the left) there is a cavern filled with Lava. In no way unusual, except that it is in an Ice Cave. Which it seemed to be eroding happily, without a hint of actual erosion on the tile until you clicked it. Confirm?

[Cirevam]

1) Slimy Slugs spawn based on certain criteria defined in the level's NPL script file. In Rock Hard they start spawning after you have eight raiders in the cavern and in Back to Basics they start spawning when you have ten or more Energy Crystals, with more spawning at once as you get more crystals.

2) Manually teleporting out a raider is sort of like rescuing it. Its shield will be recharged and you can teleport it back right away. If they lose all of their shield, that's basically a dead raider. They will not come back at least for the mission you're in.

3) The hard limit is 9 + 10 * (# of powered Support Stations). Even if there is no oxygen loss in a cavern, you still need Support Stations.

4) Raiders can shoot slugs with the handheld beams but the damage is terrible. Pusher Beams are the most effective if your raiders can push them away from buildings instead of towards them.

5) I know what you're talking about but I'm not sure what causes it or how to fix it. Maybe they get Idleness Syndrome too.

6) No, they only drain when using lasers or when Slugs are sapping your buildings. Silver crystals are ones being reserved for powering buildings. Green are ones you can use in construction.

7) Again, silver is reserved for building power. If you want to use a silver crystal to construct something, turn the building's power off and the crystal will turn green for you to use.

8) There are no ice erosion textures in the vanilla game. Baz's Mod adds some, I think.

Edited December 8, 2012 by Cirevam
Fixed #3

[EvilNinjadude]

2) Manually teleporting out a raider is sort of like rescuing it. Its shield will be recharged and you can teleport it back right away. If they lose all of their shield, that's basically a dead raider. They will not come back at least for the mission you're in.

That's what I had. Have you ever had any that come back afterwards, or are they like, gone forever?

3) The hard limit is 10 + (# of Support Stations). Even if there is no oxygen loss in a cavern, you still need Support Stations.

Kinda figured that part out, yeah. So basically, no hard limit, just a variable one. Next time, I will spawn Raiders till the Game crashes.

5) I know what you're talking about but I'm not sure what causes it or how to fix it. Maybe they get Idleness Syndrome too.

Idleness syndrome? Isn't that what happens when you move a Raider away from his base?

I have a theory that that is related to Hunger, like Carry distance before they need a break: Basically the less food they have, the longer they take to make a proper decision, so you'll often see them standing around. Can anyone test that by building a support station on the other side of a river, for example?

[ExtremeDude2]

6). there is a gitch that some people get (I did till I found a thread on how to fix it) that your crystals will drain evey time a handheld laser is shot, too bad I can remeber the thread, I think you have to go to the config file and explicitly tell it that handheld lasers don't use energy :P

[EvilNinjadude]

I had that once. Only once though, after which I ragequitted.

[Cirevam]

Idleness syndrome? Isn't that what happens when you move a Raider away from his base?

I have a theory that that is related to Hunger, like Carry distance before they need a break: Basically the less food they have, the longer they take to make a proper decision, so you'll often see them standing around. Can anyone test that by building a support station on the other side of a river, for example?

It has nothing to do with hunger (which is a silly game mechanic) and more to do with there being too many tasks for raiders to check though that's probably not the only cause. And moving a raider away from the base isn't exactly the same as Idleness Syndrome. If a raider can't find a valid path to a task -- perhaps he's on the other side of that river -- then he can pick up materials but won't take them anywhere because the game can't draw a path back to the Tool Store. If a raider has to check hundreds of ground tiles AND hundreds of materials AND a dozen other raiders are also searching for things to do, the game can just crap out and raiders get stuck trying to find tasks. That's why Idleness Syndrome is usually more noticeable on large levels that can take over an hour to complete. Go into Rocky Horror, use debug key A to smash every wall, teleport in tons of raiders, and watch what happens. Raiders will stand around for longer while searching for tasks in that enormous map and may eventually catch Idleness Syndrome.

6). there is a gitch that some people get (I did till I found a thread on how to fix it) that your crystals will drain evey time a handheld laser is shot, too bad I can remeber the thread, I think you have to go to the config file and explicitly tell it that handheld lasers don't use energy

That's the Infinite Laser Drain Glitch.

[Lair]

3) The hard limit is 10 + (# of Support Stations).

It's nine. Plus ten per support station.

I think you can make that number higher by screwing with the Support Station's code, which seems dumb that a normal limit is based off of one building.

[McJobless]

You can make it higher without requiring support stations when you increase that Texture Memory Usage value, or at least that's how it worked for me.

[Cirevam]

Thanks for pointing out that it's 9 to start, Lair.

Though I haven't directly tested it I'm pretty sure adding a positive OxygenCoef value to a unit and putting it in a cavern will let you teleport in more raiders. I've set up Time Raiders so you need tons of cheap Support Stations in order to bring in vehicles that have high negative OxygenCoefs BUT I also have a vehicle with a value of +2000.0 so I can teleport in as many vehicles as I want for testing. You should be able to teleport in as many raiders as you want as well if you give some other unit a positive oxygen value.

Extreme, yes you can increase TextureUsage in order to bring in more raiders before the game crashes but you still need Support Stations or the game won't let you teleport more raiders in. If you set the OxygenCoef for raiders to 0.0 you should be able to teleport in unlimited amounts...

[Medimorpho]

1. Slimy slugs will always invade, but only attack based on distance. (True?)

Sort of. Some missions you can only teleport down a certain number of raiders before they start appearing (Rock Hard, max 8). Another mission (Back to Basics, you can only have below a number of Energy Crystals before they start spamming your base (have less than 11 at all times).

2. Out-Teleportation from damage is different from Out-Teleportation via button: Some named Raiders who died went lost after 'dying' in an incident involving Lava and Dumb AI. I want to know if this was what caused it.

Yup.

3. Is there a Hard Limit to the number of Rock Raiders you have? After playing a crapton more of RTS games since RR, I want to know if there is a hard pop cap, or if I can just zerg the entire map...

Not sure, but it is usually 9 without a Support Station, and each additional Support Station built adds another 10 to the cap. Not sure if there is an absolute limit.

4. I've had one or two instances where, in a map with Slimy Slugs and Rock Monsters, a RR shot a laser at a slug for 5 damage. Did I dream that, or why don't they always do it?

Always.

5. Monsterlets get stuck on Power paths. Anyone else have this problem?

Yup. Happens to me all the time, and will even occur at random and while you're trying to build something, which will prevent it from actually transporting down.

6. Do energy Crystals drain over time? In one of those rescue missions, I was stuck on 1 crystal (which was silver) in the bank, until that suddenly disappeared and my base was left without power. Or was this something else?

Nope. You probably wanted to build something or get a vehicle, and the EC isn't used, at least until Ore gets deposited.

7. Indecisive vehicle teleportation! When teleporting down a vehicle that would take one silver crystal from my bank, the game does not teleport it for a while, then suddenly cuts some power and teleports it down anyway. Can anyone explain this?

If you have silver crystals, the game won't take that until a mineral is deposited at the Tool Store or Power Station.

8. Ice Erosion! In the second-to-last mission (on the left) there is a cavern filled with Lava. In no way unusual, except that it is in an Ice Cave. Which it seemed to be eroding happily, without a hint of actual erosion on the tile until you clicked it. Confirm?

Confirmed.