Starstorm (Map)

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Starstorm is an upcoming map for the Awesomenauts: Starstorm Expansion. Very little is known about this map.
Information
The following has been extracted from the Kickstarter update.
What's the story behind the map?
The new map will play out on the Starstorm, the spaceship for which the expansion is named. It was inactive for hundreds of years following the First AI War, in which it was built as an ultimate weapon that could devour complete stars with a single shot. Nothing happened for a long time after it was deactivated, but Skree recently reactivated its systems by accident. With such a powerful weapon mysteriously activated, and floating around the galaxy without somebody to control it, the Awesomenauts are sent out by their employers to investigate. Now they're fighting, because that's what they do.
So that's the backstory of the map, but how will it look? If it's a spacestation, will it look like AI Station 404 or have the years not treated Starstorm kindly?
The Starstorm isn't doing too good, and over the many years that is has been drifting through space its hull has been severly damaged by meteorshowers. Now, almost everything onboard is broken. The hull is even stripped away in some places, the dormant robot-army once contained within is scattered all around, and many of its weapons are rusted and not functioning properly anymore. Also, with Skree having made the station his home for a while, building shrines and statues out of the junk he could find amongst the ruins, it has really turned into a junkyard. All this will form the background for the Starstorm map, and the ideas so far look really awesome!
Sounds cool! So what kind of map will it be anyway? Is it like any other map that we've released so far?  
Basically, the gameplay will be a little similar to Ribbit IV and Aiguillon: a big map, with a have a big jungle and 2 lanes. 
We have loads of ideas for doing unique stuff with this map, and something we really want to do revolves around the main weapon of the spacestation: the Starstorm itself. Every once in a while, the weapon will charge up and fire at the nearby star. This causes a huge damage-dealing wave of fire to flood the level through cracks and holes in the hull, and players will need to avoid this by seeking shelter. You'll get some warning in advance, as a heads-up that things are about to go down. This will force players to adapt to these events, and it could potentially separate players for a short time. You can also try to use it to your advantage by forcing people into the exposed areas, with the Hyperbull, Throw, Lightning Ball, or Admiral Swiggins' Drop Anchor.
Will that be something players can activate themselves, by pressing a button, or is it going to happen at an interval?
It will probably be at an interval, but there might be smaller areas on the map where hazards like that are controlled with a button. As shown in the concept art that we posted recently, we're also thinking of including neutral turrets on the map as well, that may or may not be controlled by a button. It's still really early, so anything can still happen and all ideas are subject to change. The idea is that we want to make this map focus on environmental hazards though.
Alright, so what about critters? We know that Skree used to live on the AI Station, but is there anything else inhabiting the Starstorm?
Yeah, every map has had a unique critter so far, and Starstorm will be no exception. Nothing is set in stone yet, but we're thinking about small, dog-like creatures that eat metal. Seeing as the entire ship and the robot army contained within is made out of metal, they've been doing pretty well for themselves. I think that'd be pretty cool!
Space dogs that eat metal... sounds like a plan! Will there be anything special about the map due to the fact that it's in space? Do we still have the droppod sequence, or do we just get a smooth landing in a hangar for once?
You'll still drop into the game, and we'll have yet another layout for the Solar coins here. Maybe there will be some anti-gravity parts as well, as we'd like to explore vertically-oriented gameplay. We still need to experiment with that, to see whether it's fun, but we already have a lot of horizontal maps so maybe we can do something unique. We'll have to see whether it works, and if it doesn't we'll cook up something else.  
Does that mean there will be more flying droids?
Maybe, we'd like to do something a little different but the flying droids are pretty powerful and have a different role than the regular Saw-droids. Maybe we'll have a combination of the two. 
When will we be starting on the map?
We'll be starting with the pre-production soon, as we've already reached the goal, and we'll be doing some experiments and prototype to see what's fun. I'm already working on Ted McPain right now, so I'll focus on that first.
This map is expected to be released on Q2 2014, following the release of Sentry X-58, according to the Starstorm Roadmap.
The new song (which was part of the stretch goal alongside the new map) has been confirmed to be exclusive to this map, meaning that it will not play during matches on maps other than Starstorm.
Category:Maps
Category:Future Content
Category:Starstorm