There is an issue with the volcano 'bits' on some maps you can have the volcanoes continue to build up as there are not enough creeps on the map to expend all of the lava.

I like this. E.G. - I might use my extra points to give me more time to build strong volcanoes.

However, as I think you make a physical 'bit' of lava on screen it can get to a point where you can have hundreds of thousands of lava bits and the game lags.

Suggestion ...

As you hit 200 lava - halve it back to 100 but double their strength and keep doing this so every time to get to 200 - go back to 100 and adjust the strength.

or ... only 'show' 100 and keep a count and then keep streaming lava until you are back to 0.

or ... as you pass 100 start leaking lava onto the path ... or ...

make it much slower to build new lava past 100 but the each new 'bit' is much stronger

or if you don't use the lava and it hits 500 the tower explodes

etc. etc.

Hmm, ya that can be an issue. I can't easily hid the lava as each peice of lava inside the tower is the actual lava that will fly at the creeps.

You have good suggestions. The easiest and maybe best way to fix the problem is to have a mximum amount of alava a volcano can hold. Right now it explodes at 100, but like you mentioned, if there are no creeps on the screen it can grow beyond 100. Maybe I could make it so when it hits 125 (or some number) it no longer creates new lava.

It would be a shame to limit the lava as this can play a big part in strategy on certain maps.

I guess my preference if it has to limit is that every lava past 100 takes 10 times longer to create but is 10 times stronger. This would effectively give you equivalent of 1000 lava when you hit 190.

When I meant 500 it explodes I mean the tower itself physically self destructs if you neglect to use it (like a big boom tower at the time). and remove the 100 'eruption' - this could be quite nice for jugglers.

What do other people think?

noooooo, because i usually use all my 200 lava on some map, if you make it so it take 10 time more time and is 10 time better, it would make it so i can kill less creep

i agree that there are definitely strategic elements of the tower that would be strongly effected by some of the suggested changes.

not sure what the right solution is but please consider the strategies that would be removed or limited by certain changes.

perhaps firing in waves or rapidly like a machine gun could help the problems with the number of objects on the screen (both address the number of simultaneous objects.)

perhaps when you push the F key it only fires up to 100 lava and then you would need to fire a second time once it finished.

i will admit up front that it would require firing the volcano earlier as you take away the ability to have a massive wave of simultaneous damage, but i like that limitation better than some of the others.

I don't have a problem with the current volcano towers; I don't see a lag except in extreme situations.

That said, do you *have to* show the lava? I mean, it's a fun graphic, but if that's what's slowing the game why not just substitute static icons of different colors -- a triangle shape (volcanic cone), with one red streak; background of the tile goes from yellow to orange to red to purple to black as the tower is upgraded.

quote:"perhaps when you push the F key it only fires up to 100 lava and then you would need to fire a second time once it finished."

This doesn't fix the problem- the issue is volcanoes with very high lava counts and no creeps to shoot. I like your idea for different reasons tho.

quote:" if you make it so it take 10 time more time and is 10 time better, it would make it so i can kill less creep"

That is only true if you have lots of weak creeps - under normal circumstances you are normally hitting creeps with several lava bits. 10 and 10 was just a suggestion to keep it below 200 but offer the equivalent of 1000

yes, but if it take 1 lavfa to kill them, i lose 9 lava no ?

Only past the first 100 - if it was limited at 125 you wouldn't be doing much more damage anyway

make it 300 and the 10 times stronger between 300-400

When you get past 500 there is a problem

i understand now alchemist that there is an object inside of the tower itself for every single lava "bit."

you are correct... my solution would not address that... it would only address the objects on the screen once fired. so sierrajeff's suggestion might come into play to address the bits in the tower.

so maybe a combination of the two suggestions would prevent excessive objects from being on the screen.

thinking about it a little further, i'm guessing that your liking it for other reasons would be the extra control of not firing EVERYTHING and having a little more control over the stored damage. if sparticus does not like the addition of that control then he can just have it automatically fire all waves (or rapid fire) until the store is gone (or all creeps killed in either example.)

for note: when i say rapid fire, i am talking about an extremely fast rate compared to even the "rapid tower" but a continuous stream of objects from one corner to the far corner would not exceed 100 (or desired number of) volcano bits.

Hi Landron,

That is kind of how it works now - but sometimes you do not have enough creeps on screen to fire all your lava. I would prefer it not to auto-fire at 100 and let you send 100 at a time like you suggest in parallel with other suggestions to remove the problem with lots of lava

Maybe you could use alternate colored bits of lava to count as multiple bits at once (I.E. red for 1, orange for 5, yellow for 25).
I'm guessing that if this happens, it'll easily reduce the speed at which a crapload of volcanos can lag out your system.

i played in the tourney http://www.beatthegeek.com/games/TowerDefence/tournamentResults.asp?tournid=1535 earlier and WOW do i see the problem.

i had around 20 volcano towers and they were getting up to 800, 900, 1000, bits and this 2.8GHz core duo was at an absolute crawl with no creeps on the board.

let me offer to sparticus that the above volcano solution with 1,000 lava bits couldn't store up enough damage with surge towers to make it to the end. it would not even be worth trying if there was a cap of X number of lava bits.

just another plea not to cap damage storage limiting our strategic options. i compliment sparticus' creation of the tower as i think that it is rather unique in it's stored damage design. i like the new strategy options that it provides not seen in other tower defense games.

i do unfortunately understand that the volcano towers might need a complete redesign and not have a quick fix (programming explanation edited out.)

Ok, i'll try and come up with something... maybe i'll make it so that once it reaches 100 lava it no longer adds new lava... but each lava peice gets slightly stronger instead....

@alchimist: Your problen is, that the game laggs if there are too much lababalls on the screen. If you pause the game and resume it with the "p" button all lavaballs in the Volcanos disappear. they are still there but you don't see them, so the game won't lag.