[Community Game] Main Gameplay Thread

[Dyntheos]

We've kicked off a Relic community "thought project" to design and create a game, to have some fun and see what the community can come up with. A recent vote on the General Discussion forum was held to pick a direction to move in. Here's the result:

--- Genre:
Fighter sim, with real-time strategy elements.

--- Universe/Setting:
World War II alternative, set in a politically chaotic Europe in the late 1930's.

--- General Description:
Alternate history: In the 1920's, a naïve scientist creates a simple device that controls inertia and gravity… and sparks a hellish arms race! Fighter planes pull crazy turns. Bombers carry kiloton munitions. Floating naval destroyers replace zeppelins. Cities rip themselves from the ground to become airborne fortresses.

You're the military leader of a small European country, both commanding and fighting with your forces in various piloted strikecraft. In single-player, defend your country by kidnapping scientists, assaulting cities, protecting factories, raiding for resources, and stealing inventions. MP campaigns would be like Risk, but with first-person combat deciding battles.


This "thought project" is intended to be a community activity that's actively seeking anyone's and everyone's input and participation. There's no real project team or leader - it's just us kicking around ideas for now, but may be formalized more a bit later on depending on how things go. If you want to help, here's how - either post an addition to this thread, or start a new thread in one of the following forums. if you start a new thread, the title must be as follows:

[Community Game] <your post's theme here>


For all storyline fiction discussion, creation of an alternate historical timeline that results in the game's setting, or main game plot discussion, visit the Fiction forum.


For all concept art, game models, interface design, craft design, visual or sound settings, music, and other elements of a visual or audio nature, visit the Gallery forum.


For all discussion of the game's gameplay, selection of possible gaming elements, control style, multiplayer game modes, and all other elements associated with the gameplay experience, visit the General Discussion forum.

Come join us and have some fun.


Here are some questions to start us off.


- Describe the 'science' of the antigravity/anti-momentum device.

- How would resourcing and construction operations work in the game, or should they be included at all?

- What gaming engine would you pick to author such a game in, or would you build your own, and why?

- Describe the possible weapons that could be created using such a device

How would gameplay work so the player could control both his own fighting ship and his own fleet?

- ...or post your own question and answer.


Quick Links


Main Thread (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=27138) - Used for basically just general chatting about the game.


Main Gallery Thread (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?p=459083#post459083) - For Concept art, models, music, etc..


Main Fiction Thread (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?p=459086#post459086) - For Backstory and plot.


Archive Forum (http://forums.relicnews.com/forumdisplay.php?f=111) - Used to store all the threads that have been finished with, once a phase has been completed.

[Vijil]

How would gameplay work so the player could control both his own fighting ship and his own fleet?

This is probably the main question we need to sort out before we think about any other gameplay issues.

I started thinking about Black Hawk Down, with Eagle 1 flying around overhead with field commanders on board. Perhaps, given a ww2 setting, the commander (player) could be in a similar situation, flying a large ww2 style AWACs type thing, which automatically assumes a holding pattern whenever the player hits spacebar to go into a more traditional RTS like radar mode (perhaps a fuzzy green 3D hologram of the action, with camera panning and fog of war and stuff... like, a fuzzy green version of DoW...)

When flying the craft, the player could perhaps choose to use one of the docked fighters at the expense of the more advanced RTS functions, although basic "go here, follow me" etc stuff would still be available.

As far as the RTS side goes, itll have to be simple simply because this is not a dedicated RTS. The player is taking a role more akin to a field commander than a C&C style overlord thing, so if there are to be resources and base building it should really be kept minimal. I really like the idea of DoW style requisition points for holding areas, but maybe not the power aspect. Any building there is could be more like ground based flak turrets or maybe even floating flak turrets. Just short term stuff for the battle at hand, not major stuff like HQs and factories and whatever.

Which brings me to another thing, 3D. Will the radar mode be 3D homeworld style, capable of verticle move orders, or a more normal RTS? If this is air based combat, how tall should the maps be? cubic? flat? How big should the maps be? How much stuff are we commanding? Id say there should be an element of height, the maps should take around 30 seconds to fly accross, and we should be commanding on average about 4 squads of craft. Disagree? Say so.

Another thing. As a field commander, are we commanding everything on the map, or just a few squads in a much larger effort, obeying orders sent down to us from the overall commander?

In multiplayer, could there be just one commander per team, with many of the players taking a pilots role "allegiance" style?

These are my thoughts. Start shooting.

[Enterprize]

I started thinking about Black Hawk Down, with Eagle 1 flying around overhead with field commanders on board. Perhaps, given a ww2 setting, the commander (player) could be in a similar situation, flying a large ww2 style AWACs type thing, which automatically assumes a holding pattern whenever the player hits spacebar to go into a more traditional RTS like radar mode (perhaps a fuzzy green 3D hologram of the action, with camera panning and fog of war and stuff... like, a fuzzy green version of DoW...)

When flying the craft, the player could perhaps choose to use one of the docked fighters at the expense of the more advanced RTS functions, although basic "go here, follow me" etc stuff would still be available.
That's an interesting option I didn't consider. Perhaps there would be a command to order fighters and lighter bombers to dock with the "Command ship" and you could assume control of them there? For Heavy bombers they would attach to an outside fueling clamp (and a tube of some sort would come down, allowing you to pilot those as well?



As far as the RTS side goes, itll have to be simple simply because this is not a dedicated RTS. The player is taking a role more akin to a field commander than a C&C style overlord thing, so if there are to be resources and base building it should really be kept minimal. I really like the idea of DoW style requisition points for holding areas, but maybe not the power aspect. Any building there is could be more like ground based flak turrets or maybe even floating flak turrets. Just short term stuff for the battle at hand, not major stuff like HQs and factories and whatever.
Well, if there wont be much at all basebuilding, I would recommend being able to control production, and that the controlling of, well, control points, gain (different kinds?) of resources to spend on production. My thoughts: Your initial control point would give you, say, Iron, which is used for pretty much everything, and a control point in the center could give uranium or rare resource, used for powerful craft. That way controlling key points in a map would offer serious advantages.

I'm probably thinking too many resources, but having certain craft require certain things would be good.


Which brings me to another thing, 3D. Will the radar mode be 3D homeworld style, capable of verticle move orders, or a more normal RTS? If this is air based combat, how tall should the maps be? cubic? flat? How big should the maps be? How much stuff are we commanding? Id say there should be an element of height, the maps should take around 30 seconds to fly accross, and we should be commanding on average about 4 squads of craft. Disagree? Say so.

Another thing. As a field commander, are we commanding everything on the map, or just a few squads in a much larger effort, obeying orders sent down to us from the overall commander?
I would recommend a 3d map, 'cause flying a plane in a flat map would suck. Besides, even if most things are flying, there are probably still some things that the ground is needed for, and surely some groups would prefer to remain on the ground for whatever reason.



In multiplayer, could there be just one commander per team, with many of the players taking a pilots role "allegiance" style?

These are my thoughts. Start shooting.
That's an interesting idea, that could be one of two play modes perhaps? (the other being normal)

[Retroboy]

Vijil, probably the best example of a combined RTS/FPS is Battlezone. Not sure if you've played it, so here's a couple bullet points on how they did it in that one.

- You were always in first-person shooter mode. There was a radar map showing an overhead view of stuff, but you didn't actually go to "god mode" to issue your orders.
- You could get in and out of hovertanks - your perspective and weapons changed based on your current vehicle (or lack of one)
- You used series of keystrokes to order your allied forces. e.g. ~-5-3-2 while pointing at a stretch of ground might be "Broadcast command"; "Open a comm channel to Constructor"; "Build"; "supply depot where I'm pointing".
- You could also number-select your buildings and give them orders. (e.g. "build a tank")

Skilled players would be driving and shooting with the mouse, while their other hand danced over the keyboard ordering their little fleet. It's the combination of "I'm the boss" AND "I'm killing the bad guys myself" that really made it entertaining.

I'm thinking maps should be bigger than 30 seconds across - maybe a minute. Yes on the height restriction, and easily explained as a limitation of the anti-gravity science. I agree - keep resourcing light, and provided by points of control. If it's a true RTS, you should also be able to order Battleships around, if not cities... yeah, most definitely not a nod to realism. :) MP could easily work the way you envision - Battlezone worked that way, with a Commander in charge of basebuilding, and a Thug as his hunter.

-- Retro

[Vijil]

Im a big fan of the bz series retro, many of the ideas i threw out were based roughly on it.

As for the pilot thing, I definitely think that the bz restriction to one pilot was silly. Be great to have 32 players per side, 1942 style, but still with an overall commander.

Enterprize: Dont omnislash.

About resources: you are overcomplicating it I think. I dont think there should be any "buildng" in the game, more just getting more req points to bring in more forces, because your commanders think its worth sending you more cos you're doing well. Having iron and other resources is silly, because such things are never harvested in a big battle. Its abstract and detracts from the immersion of the game.

Retro, I like the bz2 type commands. Its obvious however that a proper RTS mode gives far better tactical control, faster. Different play styles depending on the commander I suppose, something we should definitely support.

I really believe that most RTS gamers like the idea of ordering *real people* around the map, and that most battlefield type FPS gamers get pissed off when the whole team act as individuals, losing the game. Im sure theyd love to have a commander telling people what to do and ensuring teamwork, its much more fun. Several times in BF:V Ive taken the roll of commander. When people agree to do what I say and go where I say, we almost always win, even with fewer numbers. Its also far more fun for the regular players.

I think ordering cities around is a bit macro... another idea everyone liked in the discussion about being a smaller part of a big effort. Naval ships could perhaps be NPC... but still be there amidst the chaos. They could be objectives or whatever. Likewise with cities.

I think it would be great if the player fights with say four squads and a few larger bomber type units, with heaps of other similar armies around in the fight... depending on the mission.

As far as multiplayer goes, perhaps lean towards an RTCW style scenario system? Not so much regular RTS as objective based combat? That would be cool. attacker team, defender team... take the objective and hold it for this long to win, bomb a certain target, whatever.

Oh and another thing: CO-OP CAMPAIGN, FFS

like, FFS. It perfectly fits this gametype.

[Russian Ninja]

Ah...Battlezone. I remember that one, that was a great game. It's probably the most related game to this one we're trying to make here (the only other one I can really think about that's related to this is Sacrifice, and then that wasn't a true FPS really).

Anyway I posted a paliminary story here (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=29497). I did kinda put in certain resources into my paliminary concept, but I suppose they can be represented by 'Control Points' like Vijil is getting at (ie. The control point is a desposit of Iron or something valuable, but any harvesting would occur after the battle once the opposition has been eliminated. Besides, the equipment used to mine the resources is far too valuable to risk in combat anyway).

However one thing that comes to mind is perhaps we could include more than Fighters and Bombers. In your concept Retro, you mention 'Floating Naval Destroyers'. Perhaps you could, say, transfer like Battle Zone to these kinds of ships (by default you could be in a fighter, but can perhaps transfer between stuff, though it could be a somewhat lengthy process to do so, during which you can still control your forces, but you can't actively help out in battle. If not direct control, then perhaps the inclusion of a few "Capital Ships" would be interesting.

[Vijil]

You dont seem to have read my post russian.

Please people, READ THE THREAD before commenting

[dukes]

Hmmm has anyone played Hostile Waters? That had a quite good RTS/FPS system, although it was based more on FPS than RTS. It did have flyers though. It had a system where each of your vehicles has an AI chip (of which you have limited numbers) which you can give orders, such as move/attack to |my target|where I'm looking|main battleship|recycling point|waypoint (1/2/3/dropoff)|me|my position|. e.g. If you told them to "move to - me" they'd become a wingman for you. It was quite an intuitive system, working off a 9 point pad of the QWEASDZXC keys, and used WASD for movement with space to toggle the menu on and off.
Another thing was you could switch to "tactical mode" where a map of the battlefield came up, and paused the game. This allowed you to direct troops around while in the heat of battle, slowing down the game a bit and helping you to correct what now seems fairly basic AI (although then it was actually pretty amazing... the game is about 4 or 5 years old).

Having never bought Battlezone (which I really should have) but going on playing the demo of the second one about 5 years ago ( :| ) I think the control system is pretty good. I still prefer the Hostile Waters system, but that may just be because of my inexperience with battlezone.

Battlefield-style multiperson vehicles would be good, having 5 people to a bomber for all the mounted guns and a pilot/bomber.

As to the Co-op system for multiplayer, a system like Natural Selection (mod for Half Life) might work, where one person is a commander (sets waypoints, places buildings, gives out medpacks/ammo/guns/armour) and everyone else runs around as grunts. Of course, this doesn't work too well on public, but for clan play its pretty good.

EDIT0r: Having just looked in the gallery bit, this came up for discussion:


i think we should keep props, as has been discussed in the GD thread. The initial antgrav tech would not be capable of lateral motion.


Maybe this should go in the GD Discussion, but why can't the planes have 2 anti grav devices? i.e. have one in the place of each prop on that plane (which r0x0rs my b0x0rs... not literally of course) so that (like a tank with tracks) it just has one in forward and one in reverse to manouever (or just has one going slightly faster than the other for high-speed manouevering). Of course, that depends on other factors.

[Moe]

As I understand it this is essentially a steampunk-type genre. To avoid high-tech antigravity devices I suggest introducing a material to the game, which has the unique property of repelling mass rather than attracting it. By using a mixture of regular and this "anti-mass" a material could be created that allows the floating destroyers to float in the air, since it is virtually weightless, and at the same time avoid having to tighten everything together in order to avoid the machines pushing themselves apart.
Propulsion should be achieved by props IMO. They definitely add to the 1930s feel of the game.

I'm against the inertialess drives, they are extremely far-fetched and create all kinds of logical problems.

Possible weaponry would be machine guns, simple, unguided rockets, and bombs. More exotic weaponry could include magnetic defense fields, maybe something based on electricity (lighting bolts, perhaps?), and of course there is always the possibility of inventing a unique chemical weakness of our anti-gravity element that can be exploited.

Edit Crap I just saw we have a thread for this. Terribly sorry for misposting here, just ignore this, I'll go post in the appropiate thread now.

[Enterprize]

Enterprize: Dont omnislash.

About resources: you are overcomplicating it I think. I dont think there should be any "buildng" in the game, more just getting more req points to bring in more forces, because your commanders think its worth sending you more cos you're doing well. Having iron and other resources is silly, because such things are never harvested in a big battle. Its abstract and detracts from the immersion of the game. .
I suppose that might work, but I was thinking on a larger scale, ie controlling control points that contained towns would slowly bring in whatever resources are in the towns, but reinforcement points are okay.

A bf-42 style multiplayer mode might be nice, so long as people were willing to work together.

Depending on the source of the gravity control, it could be used as a cannon to attack other ships (sending them off course or even tearing them apart) Unfortunately, such a weapon would require a massive power source to control it sufficiently.

btw: what the heck is omnislash?

[Mad Ewok]

So, if you go with Vijil's idea of reinforcements sent in, I think it would be best if you could choose from a small menu of craft. Just a quick menu that appears on the screen - you could use numbers to choose which type of craft:

1: Fighters (or special types)
2: Bombers
etc...

This might allow for more customization of your fleet, and allow you to replace squads that took heavy damage. Then again, it might distract you while your flying... but if its placed in the right spot it should be ok.

Also, could you customize your fleet before a mission? Maybe you have a certain number of slots, bombers fill 2, fighters one, etc. This might take some balancing to be feasible, but it gives more customization to the player (one of the greatest things about RTS games).

Oh, and for completing secondary objectives, you might get rewarded after the mission with better craft or extra slots (above) to use in the next mission.

[Retroboy]

Ya know, I'm thinking we should make a new name for this setting:

"Dieselpunk".

What do you think?

We're not boiling water and burning coal, after all...

-- Retro

[Handarazuur]

Unless we're doing so to generate electricity, in which case...

[A176]

Why hasn't anyone mentioned Allegiance?

Its a space sim. But its also an RTS. With resourcing and area control. It's the perfect model for this game.

[Koki]

If there's no resourcing, then I suggest going into Soccer Squad-based hybrid! Sounds quite crazy(I'm almost proud of myself), eh.

The overall idea: First, before the battle, you position your ships/squads, then set general strategy - attack left wing, left wing, from top, down, left-upper-spine etc., like in Soccer Games, where you set your players on the field.

Then it's into in-game action. I will assume that it's squad based, then it would be easier to control. You can issue orders to your, errr, lancemates(Too much Mechwarrior), or even to whole squads. It's pretty similiar to the Hostile Waters thing, I never played it, though; The F1-12 keys are more than enough to issue orders.

About the A-Grav system - I, too, think it should make flyers hover in air - the propulsion system is a must-be!

And, I second Enterprize... what is omnislash(Aside from a Limit Break, of course)?

[dukes]

/me slaps Koki round the head.

Never call it "soccer" again, it's football.

That is all.

[FluxX]

Would a Freelancer model for flight work?
Mouse to pilot, with basic autopilot orders such as follow, evade ect for your ship. (Explained by co-pilots in each plane)

While setting the plane to an auto mode, you can issue commans via the mouse.

The game freelancer allowed for quick switches between piloting and hud controls. So good that it can be played with mouse alone.

[incarnate]

i havent been around to check in the forums the last few days so i had a lot of reading to catch up on!!!

anyway...first this is my take on the map/order giving aspect:
i assume players will need some way of giving orders/directing ships during heated battle. i was discussing this with a friend, and the idea i came up with is this: instead of having an annoying map that pauses battles (which would not work on a LAN?internet game anyway), we could implement the homeworld style 3-d map directly into the cockpit. the view screen could ebe switched from pure fighting mode to cockpit mode...without interupting a dogfight. the flight controls and diagnostics could be made to appear, and a toggle for thw 3-d map could make it display right inside the cockpit so the pilot could easily look down at the map and still fly the plane (plus it'll take a damn good flier to give orders in a dogfight.)

the map could be controlled by keys while flight w/ joystick. certain keys could pan the map while team hotkeys can select escorts, cap ships, etc. also, the map could be divided into smaller sections for zooming purposes. I.E: "F1" zooms to Sector 1. Team hotkey 1 selects a group of fighters. a move command can be placed either using arrow or keys. Or for long moves..AI can be made to move fighters from attacking a ship in Sector 1 to aid a fight in sector 4.

this was a way to keep the game flowing w/o a pause or interuption as well as finding a way to NOT have to use a mouse. *AI will be key in this game, def*

second...as for moe's post...for what its worth in THIS forum, props would be more feasible and look cooler to fit the steampunk idea.

third: fleet custimization is def key. i like mad ewoks idea of pre-battle choosing. for shorter distance missions (say early missions where you are defending your base from attack... also a possible way INTO the war, pearl harbor style) you would have the fighters from your "mother-city" that could be launched and landed, and also allow MUCH shorter reinforcement times. for excursions outside your bases' ranges, carriers could be used, and you could choose which ships would be launched in the first wave or as escorts. the fighter slot idea is good. powerful ships take up a lot of room, keeping battles fair and interesting. control of a carrier or cap ship might add depth too...either in-battle switching or transfering from one ship to another via fighter (say your destroyer is getting ass-whooped and you need to stay alive) could let the player control the actions of the cap ship: all out attack, port batteries fire at fighters, etc.

as for non-campaign battles...maybe for tech purposes an Empire Earth style "epoch" selection could be used. to quote retros generation idea...maybe it could be "early-grav era", "ww2 era" (technically this WOULD be true in the game's sense), and the such.

just some more ideas. sorry it was so long.

[Bob McDob]

I just found this project. It's quite fascinating and I love the general concept and setting - reminds me a bit of the 1995-era Rowan sim Air Power. I'll throw in some of my two cents.

incarnate's idea of a cockpit map with keyboard controls is interesting, but I'm worried that it'd be impossible to control in practice - I don't know about you, but in a heated dogfight I'm totally focused on maneuvering and staying alive, and I have enough trouble giving orders to my wingmates through menus. I'm not sure if the Battlezone analogy really holds, since then you were primarily confined to one plane - going 3D adds all sorts of new controls and worries, and having to manage a battle fleet on top of that sounds like sensory overload. The alternative would be to "dumb-down" combat, but I think that would kill some of the basic excitement.

Personally, I think Koki's idea would work best - before combat you have a few seconds to outline your basic strategy (obviously if you're attacking you'd have more time to plan then if you're scrambling defenders - giving added incentive to offensive operations).

Finally (and I know I'm probably coming in too late with this idea, but what the hell) I think resource/empire management and combat management should be kept seperate, something like Wing Commander Armada. Building of warships, base construction - all that would be done in the "grand-strategy" view. When in combat, you wouldn't be able to build reinforcements - but you could call them from adjacent sectors, and they'd eventually arrive if you held out long enough.

[Ammon Ra]

1920's you say? that sort of just doesn't allow for some very interesting developments and inventions occuring at the time...

Basicly tesla coils (c&c, aka transformers AC stuff), (late1890's)
particla accelerators (or ion cannons if u will -'charged particle beams'. late 1934 linky (http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_wendwar.html))
mecanical & electrical resonance (disintegrating)
radio controlled boats (yes...in 1898 linky (http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_robots.html))
neon lighting (1897)
basics of radar (begin of ww1. Linky (http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_poevis.html)
Radio (pre-ww1, 1890-1900)

yeah, i do have a tesla fetish :p. still, considering these were "devloped" back then, and anti-gravity, they aren't really such a big stretch :)

[dukes]

/me slaps Ammon Ra around a bit with the Red Alert box.

Too much C&C mate :p Although Tesla's work on electricity could be very interesting. We could even name the material after him (Teslium or something... sounds better than anything deriving from levitation/gravity anyway). Just say the scientist who discovered this had him as his mentor, and named the substance after him :shrug:

[Handarazuur]

Teslite? Great idea, dukie!

[Ammon Ra]

/me zaps dukes with some real tesla coils...

c&c was a big joke. Sure, the russians really were interested in his work, ESP his particle beam work during the cold war, but westwood just took an unknown name and made a weapon out of it (well, they took "transformer" and turned that into a weapon...). Btw tesla coil is a transformer. so those defensive structures are just giant transformers... :p

if u insist, just scrqp the word 'tesla coil' and place 'lightning gun' instead. there is a smpler way to also project the lightning bolts, but you'll always need a tesla coil -transformer- to get the required voltages so that the lightning can jump to nearby planes.

sad truth is that westwood have skrewed up the word tesla coil... :nyah:

[dukes]

Yeah, but the tesla coil COULD work like that... its just not directable and would be EXTREMELY short range. Would still make a good weapon though, and up in the sky would be able to have enough range to be useful (seeing as so close to the ground as Westwood put it it would just discharge into something nearby, probably your own buildings :p ) The only thing is I don't know if it would actually do much damage to metalic planes... but if it shorted out the grav drive the plane would just drop.

[Ammon Ra]

Ever see what lightning can do to modern aircraft? ;) it would definatly disable your AG engine quite quickly... esp if it has any sensitive electrical parts (capacitors, vacume tubes ect)

And to project the lightning, just use pozerfull UV lamps. they'll ionise the air creating an invisible cable for the lightning to pass through. they did have those around 1900, but they were prolly quite expensive :) But i doubt that the russians in c&c were smart enough to use those... they prolly used RFID's :D

[dukes]

Well lightning is a LOT more powerful than what could be generated by a lightning generator mounted on a fighter, would it not? As for the UV lamps, I like that idea, means you don't need EXACT targetting, but wouldn't give fighters too large a range. The only problem is, they may give carriers/destroyers too good an anti-fighter weapon (you'd just point the lamp in the general direction of the fighter and it would instantly zap 'em).

[FluxX]

Hey, this would be a good add to the game.

A "emp" or lightining weapon. Only has a very close range though. Would be good for emergencies.

However, should we not keep that seperate? OnT/Offt?

[A176]

c&c was a big joke
Exactly!

[incarnate]

hmm...i gave the mapping a thought and tho i do think it would be hard to control in heated battle, the point of it is to be able to see where your guys are w/o a game interuption (i.e. homeworld sensors map). not to say that isnt a viable take, i think an in cockpit map be a little more unique.

as for control diffs...i like the idea of pre-combat planning. why not have a briefing for your Lts and squad leaders. give them their initial orders and then the in battle controlling would be more simplified and allow more flight sim style play. simple shift + "key" or ctrl + "key" commands for form on my wing, retreat, etc can quickly issued to wingmen. and the 3d map is supposed to be simplistic. F1-F4 say could be bound to sectors (as per mentioned) and F5 for normal. then team keys can be used to order units around to sectors, back to base, attack, escort, etc.

i know it sounds like i'm stressing team control, BUT NOT THE CASE. AI Lts. should take care of the small things...if they are dying, run away. the map was just a fix to keep things flowing and keep you in the cockpit for the flight sim play. i still agree mostly with koki's idea. you DONT go into battle w/o a plan. you can assign escorts and waypoints before the battle begins to cut down on micromanaging. after all, as MANY people have stressed (the genre name as well)...this is a Flight Sim w/ RTS elements.

*just my pushy opinions of course.

as for tesla coils? if people really want them, maybe for capitol ships only, or less powerful for fighters. and a late game development (maybe worked into the plot). but thinking about the amount of draw from a power source the extra voltage to make it work, not to mention size, would really effect performance. i think to balance the game, making a cap ship only have limited use of them would fly. or even fighters...they can use it, but any extended use will drain energy from the AG device and cause flight problems. plus you SHOULD hit your own planes. lightning isnt very choosy (unlike old R.A....zapping little inf dudes)

[Bob McDob]

know it sounds like i'm stressing team control, BUT NOT THE CASE. AI Lts. should take care of the small things...if they are dying, run away. the map was just a fix to keep things flowing and keep you in the cockpit for the flight sim play. i still agree mostly with koki's idea. you DONT go into battle w/o a plan. you can assign escorts and waypoints before the battle begins to cut down on micromanaging. after all, as MANY people have stressed (the genre name as well)...this is a Flight Sim w/ RTS elements.

Yeah, good point. Leaders in real life don't micromanage their subordinate's every move; they give orders and leave it to their underlings to follow (or "interpret") it. And those orders can sometimes be followed in unexpected ways. This could possibly give a n RPG bent to the game, where the personalities of squadron and wing commanders may cause them to follow their orders to various extent; i.e., one might take your command to attack twenty fighters with a single four plane flight head on literally, and die trying; another would, knowing the singlemindedness of the enemy commander, use two of his fighters to break up the flight so the remaining three can use hit-and run tactics to sow discord. A third subordinate would feign "radio failure".

The point here, though, is that your subordinates should have minds and intelligences of their own, and not be mindless drones (unless, of course, that's their personality type).

[Jaen-ni-rin]

I think Tesla's works in-game are good idea.
You can also add some sort of HW 2 pulsars,
and name it ... eg. Plasma Beam, Particle Thrower,
Energy Accelerator or whatsover that'll came on mind.

Next post

I put it in gallery, but it was wrong forum.
Here are two grapchical engines I want
to hmm... show to you.

Truevision 3d (http://www.truevision3d.com/)
Nebula Device (esp. Nomadic Nebula) (http://www.radonlabs.de/)

Truevision 3d - fast, and quite a piece of grapchic stuff. I sugest waiting till 6.5 release (stencil shadows, normalmapping and so on)

Nomadic Nebula - mainly because of similar project - Project Nomads

Next post

My vision :

Fuel - a must. Antigravity generators shouldn't be perpetuum mobile. The should consumpt a quite big amount of fuel. Bigger ship - faster consumption, but bigger ship - bigger fuel tanks.
Unit preserving - for a more attachment in player - fleet relations. There should be unit limit, because antigravity generator being a new invention shouldn't be easy to build. As this limits units numbers and technology advanced units in normal RTS system (One unit, one technology), I propose upgradeable (through subsystem and crucial systems upgrading) ships. Upgrade could be done Mangement Room between missions.
The ships numbers should be limited with maximum number and power of generators. As a result of it each unit will be valuable and you'll send rescue missions for crasched planes and MIA pilots.
Experience - each AI pilot should have an experience counter (at very high experience rating pilot will become an ace, wchich allows to (once) choose one of several special abilities for pilot). Higher experience results in higher abilites. Yes, abilites. The game should have a basic ability system like:
Acrobatics, Commanding, Shoot accuracy, Knowledge, Intelligence and Morale rating. Depending on these pilot will (in previous order) fly better, will be better in tactics and commanding, pilot will shoot better, this will affect the pilot ability of making small repairs when his ship has crasched, but the damages aren't big, this will affect the survivability of MIA pilots and experience gained in battles and last, but not least Morale will affect subordination of units. But insubordination will occur only when you order some kamikaze or dangerous for pilot task and Morale is close to zero (the death is close).
Morale grows when unit wins, his MIA friend is found and on other happy events and lower when unit get hurt, loses friend (there will be relationship states - Friend, Liked person, Neutral, Unliked person, Personal enemy) and on other bad events.
Docking/Ground landing for bigger repairs - this will result in higher gameplay because of missions where you escort a battlecruiser or so to the ground shipyard.
Checkpoint ordering system - instead of directing selected units, you place checpoint in space with a task. For eg.
You see an enemy eee ... gun-boat with escort of two fighters. So you place your mouse on the gun-boat (in RTS view) and select Task->Attack->Attach to Object (other options will be, for eg. 'Patrol for Enemy'). In result a small dialog window pops-up with AI way to do thethe task (at this moment task is valid) in the example:
Follow gun-boat
Take care of escort (this AI will be aware of escort because of 'escort me' task attached to the gun-boat)
Take care of gun-boat
The AI will also put sufficient ships to this task :

Fighters = Enemy fighters numbers * their defense rating compared to similar data of Players fighters (then select double number of needed ships) and compare their
hull rating to Players selected fighters hull rating (cut down selection) and then distance and engagement in fight (another cutdown)
Bombers = Gun-boat hull rating * it's defense power compared to Bombers Damage rating * it's hull rating *
quantity and and then distance and engagement in fight cutdown
Of course the player will have ability to change the task options and priority. When player is editing a task game goes in slow-motion mode. Also checkpoint ordering system can be used to set 'rescue points' and 'rescue routes' (rescue routes can be only edited at the beginnig of mission, in briefing room)
For eg. when you see badly damaged airplane you can order it to retreat. But you notice the plane is fleeing in direction where you've noticed enemy activity, you can order it to flee to a checkpoint.


I've also heardan idea of Total War style map. I think it's good idea, because it'll smooth campaign (no d..n pattern: end mission, go to menu, choose mission, read briefing grrr.). From there you could see theather of war in pseudo 3d (or not) and move your strategical fleets. It'll also bring possiblities of expanding yours faction frontiers. It's be the centre of the game. From here you'll have access to all screens, from here you'll manage whole your fleet and production of needed subsystems or units.

On this map will be marked events. When you'll hover the mouse over a marker you'll see short description of event. On click you'll get moved to the Briefing Room when you'll be able to read more detailed reports about the event. Then you could go to Management Room to manage units, set tactics (basing on reports and maps provided by the means of hmm ... espionage ???) and so on.

When you decide starting positions etc. you'll be bring to battlefield close-up. And the last thing I propose is to divide close-up maps into two regions high altitude and low above ground. In high altitude maps you'll get a very basic terrain (no trees or other stuff, only bumpmapping and displacement mapping), but your units detail can reach maximum LOD (aka. LOD0). And low above ground you'll get quite detailed terrain (see Soldiers: Heroes of WW II), but your units never can be more detailed than LOD1. And for other differences beetwen HA Maps (High Altitude Maps) and LAG Maps (Low Above Ground Maps)
are:

On HAM your airplanes are relying more on conventional drives (if any) rather than anti-gravity
On LAGM your airplanes are acting like helicopters, or like Total Annihilation aeroplanes are hovering (or like TA landing) low above ground and you can issue order of flying at high, medium or low part of LAG Map or land
I just like an idea, that the game will look like alternative WW II Total War (but with extended gameplay (FPS conrol of plane (kinda remind me of Soldiers direct control)))

That's all for now.

Please comment

[Ishaar Niirfa]

Interesting work here. Just to give an example of what you can accomplish here is the best independent game I've seen so far:

0AD (http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/)

Can't wait for it to come out. :D

[Enterprize]

Interesting work here. Just to give an example of what you can accomplish here is the best independent game I've seen so far:

0AD (http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/)

Can't wait for it to come out. :D
Holy cow. _Very_ cool.

[Bob McDob]

Jaen-ni-rin
Unit preserving - for a more attachment in player - fleet relations.

Mmmm ... I agree with a lot of this stuff, but I've never really liked the idea of definitive unit caps, arbitrary or otherwise. I think that unit numbers should be limite, but I'd prefer to handle it from a more "universe-wise" standpoint (i.e., your fleet can theoretically grow infinitily large depending on supplies of <float-fuel> but since supplies of <float-fuel> are limited themselves, it for all practical purposes limits your growth as well). That encourages a more aggressive, "carpe-diem" attitude rather then everyone sitting behind their impenetrable defenses and waiting for the other side to make the next move - since <float-fuel> is so valuable, you absolutely *must* go out and fight for it right at the start, or be destroyed.


Jaen-ni-rin
Experience

Agree completely. This could be combined with the resource management system to make "crew" a resource (as it is in some games) ... basically, the idea is to make it so that for every trained person you put into the military, it's another trained person you take away from industry, and as such production will slow. And of course, training cost time and money - losing all your skilled pilots in one battle, even a victorious one, may end up costing you the battle

The one thing that concerns me is that handling all this data might slow the combat engine down/force lower unit caps ... but hey, if that's what it takes, I'm all for it! And with the power of hyper-threading, nothing shall stand in our way!


Jaen-ni-rin
Checkpoint ordering system
Sounds good, though as always you'll want to implement some sort of robust shortcut system once people get better at playing.

[boolybooly]

the material that repels gravity has been invented in a HG Wells story "The First Men in the Moon", it was an early exploration of the hive as the selenites have insect like qualities and evokes the period feeling you are looking for with steampunk

Professor Cavor creates a substance (discovers a rare metal) called Cavorite which is used to cut off the effect of gravity. The film (1964) has been panned in reviews and so the book is not as famous as WotW and Time Machine also by Wells. But both book and film have elements of convincing pseudo realism which might resonate with the steampunk flavor and may inspire curious googlers. FYI

with the discussion of MP play and central command structures etc, it struck me that it might fit if you could choose how your team will play in either a Command mode or a Soviet mode.

The word "Soviet" means a grouping or meeting of equally ranked presiding officers who come to agreement about how to conduct a battle (from the Russian and the origin of the communist usage). Since this is set post revolution it makes sense that the Russians, would use this form of command structure in preferrence over the US/British authoritarian heirarchy. Whether they were the allies or became the enemy in the game is a matter for the parallel universe to decide.

How this translates into game play would be interesting. I used to play Renegade (FPS/RTS) a lot and found that games with different people had different dynamics. Some would throw up a cheer leader often the best player of the last game who had a badge(MVP after name) who would galvanise and coordinate and the rest of us would cooperate with them (& sometimes it was me). Other games would not need any communication at all other than watch the other players and work together using initiative and intelligence (this was usually the case with the best players), some teams were just a rabble and players did not work together but just worked on their individual scores and would dump you in it to save their own hide etc and some were just dumb noobs period!

If you could choose the dynamic then one team type could have a commander and the other team type be a soviet. Players maybe could vote on it in the lobby, to bring in that righteous element of democracy ;).

Here are some rough ideas you might pick up on and develope if you like them.

The commander for example would have insignia, and might be selected based on previous game results like Renegade MVP, or even ladder scores.

The commander would get a cut of all the bounty points earned by the team and be able allocate the points to the players so they can get better units or upgrades. It might be that by following orders players got a share of these points for themselves. So it costs a commander points (share) to issue "official" orders but the points go to the people who follow them. Only the commander can issue orders (via minimap and audible comms system with fixed order) but the team can draw his attention by pinging the minimap and making audible requests (like renegade hotkeys system). The Commander can see the radar detection output of all the team delayed by a time proportional to the distance from himself to the player. All the team can see the commanders radar delayed by a similar time, except for units represented by their own radar in real time. So the minimap beyond their radar is always slightly out of date depending on the dispersal of players.


The Soviets would share all the points earned by the whole team equally but all of them would be able to give each other points to get better units or upgrades. (In Renegade team players would often buy each other units, but then others would twoc (steal) their teamates vehicles while they were being repaired lol.) All members of a soviet would be able to make orders and requests but they would not have any reward attached to following them except the shared bounty of effective fragging, if it occurs. Radar would update depending on distance to player (delay would need balancing with the Command verision).

Point I want to make is both sides could use both methods of organisation by using the pretext of an undercover operation. ie if the Soviets dress as enemy and use enemy units (whoever) they use soviet style command. If the Command style side go undercover they use command but use soviet units.

A lot of this depends on fictional universe, but I say go with what people want, so fire away.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

What would the scale be? For instance, would there be maybe 1 or 2 capital ships on a map at once?

Another thing to decidew ould be the relative power of large ships versus fighters. Are large ships extremely hard to take out, or relatively easy? Do you take them out by doing damage or destroying components? Are ordinary fighters effective against them or do you need bomber-type aircraft?

For instance, I think that the main method of taking out airborne capital ships should be destroying their AG engines. Of course they'd be very well protected and probably mount multiple AG engines.

UNIQUE THINGS YOU COULD DO WITH ANTI GRAVITY WEAPONRY:

Lifter weapon: Missile or bomb that sticks to a target and imparts great upwards force locally for a short period of time. Peripheral hits might even rip wings off or lift a turret straight off a capital ship. Hitting a tank or such with one of this could lift it into the air, spinning end over end.

Inertial Cancellation Cannon. Devestating weapon that vastly increases the inertia of the shells it fires, rendering deflection almost impossible.

Antibombs: "Bombs" fired upwards by ground forces!

I think one thing to hammer down is the scale. Would this be something with large maps ala Codename Eagle/BF1942?

[jetfx]

I haven't checked in on this in a while, but lord good almighty you guys are going balls out. I'll probably post something on the alternate history thing later.

[Handarazuur]

I've got it! The ships fly by using Flubber!

[calkanite]

I think we need to establish the actual character that we are first. people are talking about jumping in and out of planes? I dont think that would be too good. But i think we should have a character of the player at all times at least on the map

[FluxX]

One of the big limiting factors may be the game engine. Howevre, a good gameplan would allow for parts to be dropped (as in all game development) when necissary.

Would be good to see a plan of sorts. Like a concept or something. All layed out well.

Then its easier than following forums of muddled threads :P .

[Retroboy]

Asked for already, Fluxx, and might be granted when the DoW rush dies down a bit more.

From what I've heard about R:TW, a two-tiered campaign model similar to what they feature (but without all the complexity as we want to quickly get to blowing stuff up) might be desirable.

-- Retro

[Ammon Ra]

but isn't it suposed to be a fps/rts/battlezone-esque style? Or have you/community changed minds since then?

The best engine for a battlezone-ish game would be, imo, a fps engine. There would be limitations, but considering what was made in terms of mods [NS especially for HL, inf for original ut ect] several years ago, and the next generation of fps games [farcry, stalker, doom^3, hl2, ect] are supposedly more moddable than hl/ut, you might as well choose a game engine, and use that to create your game..."mod", sorry ;)

:2cents: