Pod Ideas

Cadillac · Post by **Cadillac** » Fri May 25, 2007 5:43 pm

Radruin wrote:QUOTE (Radruin @ May 25 2007, 12:15 AM) So you guys think that we should basically just eliminate the pods concept, and you get an army guy to play with after your vehicle goes -kaboom-?

No.

Just because we don't have an actual pod, it doesn't mean that the concept is eliminated.

A light infantry unit could function just the same as a pod, hell we could just give you an un-armed man as a pod, it would function much the same. Limited movement capabilities, no offensive capabilities, little or no defensive armor (or health) and perhaps even lets say ... a stamina bar, which when it runs out you instantaneously die, it might regenerate but extremely slowly.

(There's an idea in itself /mrgreen.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="mrgreen.gif" />)

radruin · Post by **radruin** » Fri May 25, 2007 7:16 pm

I like Kap's idea better...Guess it's something to test once we get the game going? One idea vs the other

terrenblade · Post by **terrenblade** » Fri May 25, 2007 9:51 pm

If we do an equipment system like allegiance, you could have an infantry combat kit taking a slot in your vehicle.

muman42 · Post by **muman42** » Sat May 26, 2007 12:57 am

QUOTE Radruin Posted Yesterday, 12:15 AM
So you guys think that we should basically just eliminate the pods concept, and you get an army guy to play with after your vehicle goes -kaboom-?[/quote]

yes

however, its kind of like an upgraded pod, u aint gonna have much of a chance vs a tank.

Cadillac · Post by **Cadillac** » Sat May 26, 2007 12:05 pm

I'd think that we'll have polls about this in the near future after we have solodified a few possiblities.

(And how eliminate the ones that arent practical etc)

Post by **Tigereye** » Wed May 30, 2007 6:58 am

I just had an idea about this... what if the "pods" don't move? Hear me out.

Figure out a way to work a "flashcard" or "memory stick" or some other form of digital storage device that will represent a player. Conceptually, that device will "hold" the player as contents somehow. Their consciousness? Their programming (like cylons)? Their soul?
Either way, make the pods an object that iconifies the player.

Part of their pod will be a built-in transmitter that unfortunately can't transfer fast because of size/battery/whatever. When you die, your pod is left over and begins transferring "you" to base. Because of the interference on the planet, you get faster transfer rates to home the closer you are to a base... although like refineries for some factions in Allegiance, not all of Quantus' stations have built-in receivers so you can't be "picked up" by them.

In Allegiance, if you die close to a station (say 2000m away) and your pod travels at 50m/s, you'd get home in about 40s.
In Quantus, your consciousness is 100TB worth of data. if you die close to a station 2000m away, it'd transfer at about 2.5TB a second. This gets you home in about 40s.
The further away from a suitable receiving station, the slower your transfer rate - the longer it takes you to get home. You can work the math out to be almost identical to Allegiance.

As for player pickups, any player can pick up other players' chip and use their bigger Zetabyte-per-second transmitters to transmit pod data to base in 1ms - just like pods.

The only true difference between this idea and Allegiance would be the time after a player dies. In Allegiance, the pods travel closer to base allowing players to pick them up closer to base. In this idea, the chips stay put.
You may be able to solve this one too if you invent some kind of built-in infantry-carried relay system. You could say that an infantry member standing halfway between the pod and base to "receive the rest of the data" or "pick up" the pod when that pod's transfer is 50% complete.
This would aproximate the same kind of timing that Allegiance does.

Don't know if this is a good idea or not, but I think it'd mimic the timing pretty well.

--TE

madpeople · Post by **madpeople** » Wed May 30, 2007 10:30 am

the problem with yours is you make the player just sit still looking at a timer for 40 seconds or more, that isn't fun.

in allegiance you can have a direct effect on how long it takes to get home because you can actually fly your pod to friendlys, suicide on mines or enemys etc.

the original devs of alleg tried to avoid doing things that would reduce the fun for a player, i think that mindset should be used here.

Post by **Tigereye** » Wed May 30, 2007 6:29 pm

Yeah because podrides are so much fun - I forgot.
Thanks for the reminder.

--TE

madpeople · Post by **madpeople** » Wed May 30, 2007 7:41 pm

would you rather jsut have a 5 minute timer and have pod speed fixed at 0 so you cant ram enemys with your pod, suicide on mines, eat AB missiles, pod enemys with pod ram and everything else discussed in the "how to have fun in a pod" thread?

user interaction is much better than simply telling the user "you cant do anything, please sit still for the next X minutes"

Kap · Post by **Kap** » Wed May 30, 2007 8:20 pm

I remember a game where our red door was totally camped and I kept flying my pod to aarm's int and sidethrusting in front of him until he decided to kill me. We didn't save the base but it was so much fun those seconds he took to decide whether or not kill me every time I was standing in front of his mini-guns.