silly faction idea

[schnobs]

This occured to me even before I started playing -- I was reading the Academy while downloading, and without knowing the game itself, the description of heavily escorted bombers attacking a base reminded me of B-17s and Mustangs.

The idea of a WWII faction has been on my mind ever since.

It would certainly be something cool to look at, though maybe only for the first time. Integrating it into Alleg will certainly be difficult, balancing it with regards to the other factions may prove impossible. This thread is titled "silly faction idea" for a reason.

However, if you think the idea might work out, and/or have some time to spare, please read on while I outline the skeleton concept I have so far. Maybe we can flesh it out.

Overall look and feel:

Mostly WWII craft, though it may be necessary to bring in 1950s models for advanced tech. Piston engines droning. Dive bomber klaxons.
I envision the bases to be asteroids cut in half, with an airstrip on the level surface (runway, hangars, maybe some scenery like trees and the likes). For once, the lauch sequence could make sense as planes roll down the runway.

One problem I see is that Nanites would be totally out-of-style; just look at Phoenix for how much trouble this makes. Furthermore, both proxies and tracking missiles wouldn't fit either... I'll deal with these issues later on. I can't imagine how any faction could work without ripcord, so as silly as it may feel, it will need to stay in.
No shields as such, but at least larger vessels should come with some self-repairing capability. Which means shields, though they may be of the same damage type as the hull.

Expansion
As far as Ints are concerned, Expansion will be the easiest to do. Like, Spitfires and Me-163s. Seeing as I have no clue how you could mix heavy boosters and piston engines, one could also consider the Me-163 and F-104 for enh/adv tech, even though the latter would be *very* advanced tech (you'd even need to slap on some missiles!).

Generally, I think they should be limited to killing small and medium craft (though being extremely good at it); fighting a pushed con would require both ints to deal with the escorts as well as figs to despose of the con.

As to Troop Transports, I think about Paratroopers (which would work similar to NG missiles). Low range, slow, and tracking ("gravitating" towards the target base).
For HTTs, I consider landing ships with a small base-killing gun (maybe as turret). Cease fire once the shields are down, or you won't capture but kill the base. These may be small-rip so they can utilise carriers; lacking nanites, they will need to be comparatively cheap and plentyful (and hence scale like galvs, which may be a bad idea as well).

Supremacy
Carrier based and long range multi-purpose aircraft. Being not too proficient with WWII gear, the only ones I can think up are Mosquitos, Mustangs or FW-190s. I'm not too shy of using LtBoosters in that case (call it NOx injection).

As to weaponry, I envision rockets and bombs (like GT Corvettes) and torpedoes.

Rockets would be unguided, mostly tailored to fight bombers and to a lesser degree utility craft; the latter may prove difficult due to miners and cons dodging, however, the Corvette missiles seem to be reasonably good at the task.

Bombs... as much as I'd love to see squadrons of dive bombers attacking miners, I don't think this will be possible (dodging again). So they would be mostly anti-base, again opening the issue of galv scaling. Well, and anti-cap of course.

Torpedoes would be the ultimate anti-util device, and the only one where I wouldn't mind if they would be tracking. However, the tracking ability that makes them perform reliably against dodging miners&cons will also make them utter cheese vs. any other non-boosting craft. How about them having no CM resistance at all?

Torps and bombs should be one-shot weapons; once you spent the one you had loaded at start, reloading another one from cargo should take like forever. This could be easily achieved by means of a ridiculous reload time. I'd wish something similar would be possible for rockets, but as these should come in packs of six or ten, I don't see how this can be done.
Besides, torps&bombs ought to be rather heavy -- you should feel the relief once the payload is gone, and
be tempted to just get rid of the weight when drawn into a dogfight.

Tactical
Tough one. I once considered dive bombers with cloaks ("out of the clouds") but there's too many difficulties with this approach. Instead, I now propose a submarine-style craft. It would be slow and low-sig by default (submerged) and come with a booster of sorts (emulating surface travel). A turret of sorts (AA gun to take down the lone scout before reinforements arrive) may or may not be a good idea.
SBs carrying some sort of base-killing missile may be based on the same design.

The main problem I see is that any default sig that allows them to remain operational at all in the presence of PPs will also make them undetectable to tac and sup.

Garrison
Scouts would be fighters with less firepower and more scanrange; instead of proxies, I propose a short-lived cloak of sorts (hide in a cloud).
As for bombers.... lacking nans, how about tough beasts with plenty of turrets? Again, Phoenix shows the limitations of the concept, but I can't think of any better. Besides, a WWII faction wouldn't be complete without Lancasters and B-29s. As to their bombs, they should be plentyful, fastfiring and somewhat tracking (again, call it gravity).

I think this faction should make heavy use of carriers; therefore, I propose to make both drones and piloted carriers available as Starbase/Garrison tech, and provide the station (or maybe even all techbases) with the ability to dock Capital ships. Maybe even the stealth "subs" should technically be caps.

[DasSmiter]

though the current concept may not be too fleshed out i think its a good idea

how about a group of scientists using roswell technology ( not too far after WW2 right? ) managed to get off planet and found the aleph, settling on a distant planet waaaay out there, recently come into contact with IC or something

since they haven't been developing much in the way of weaponry they rely on WW2 based technology to defend themselves?

[Grimmwolf_GB]

It does not need much of an explanation, it would be pure fun to fly those machines. If you want to get in the mood, watch Wing Commander - the movie. They have carriers, submarines and ww2 fighters in space. /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

[Raveen]

Much as I'm loathed to say it I think this'd make a great idea for a new core rather than a faction in an existing core (which would be a little odd).

Each faction could be WW2 combatants so I'm thinking, UK, Germany, Japan, USA as the main facs.

To enhance the gameplay you could change the flight model by removing sidethrust and making boost a longer timed but less powerful acceleration, more like an engine overdrive than the rocket boost in regular alleg.

If you were really clever you could even have ground of sorts. All you need to do is make models like the current asteroids that are flat circles the same diameter as the sector and make sure that all alephs are above that plane.

It'd be a lot of work but it could be fun /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

[Rakinite]

QUOTE (Raveen @ Jul 6 2006, 11:03 AM) If you were really clever you could even have ground of sorts. All you need to do is make models like the current asteroids that are flat circles the same diameter as the sector and make sure that all alephs are above that plane.

And if you were even more clever, you could use a sky-colored backdrop for sectors, maybe with buildings too. Just make sure the "ground" asteroids if implemented can't be built on. I'd hate to see a smartass comm use the ground rock as a base. Also, do note that in WW2, some ships equipped unguided rockets that did a lot of damage.

About techpaths in general:
The expansion complex WOULD be easy to do, but only as a very defensive path, i.e lacking speed, making its fighters things like Spitfires, P-40 Warhawks, Me-190s, Zeros perhaps even the two winged Gloster Gladiator as a light interceptor(those were actually used at the beginning) However, it should be able to turn without losing massive amounts of airspeed, making it very good at defense. Troop transports would have to have defensive capabilities to work properly, and if they dropped paratroopers, I would suggest VERY high speeds and if possible, deacceleration.

Supremacy would allow you to build more offensive fighters, like P-38/47/51s, FW-190s, Mosquitos, K-63 Hiens, Me-110. They'd be faster than most of the Exp ships, but not quite as capable of turning. They could be equipped with ultra low yield bombs for bases, and galv-like 20 mm or 37 mm cannons.
You'd also get the bombers which can drop a LOT of bombs, and heavier ones too (B-17s, B-29s). These ships could use the rockets.

A Taclab would require more time and money to invest in, but the fighters you'd get from it, would include F-86s, Me-262s, even the most advanced piston planes of the era. They would be very fast, and about as manuverable as the supremacy ships, but requiring a larger area to turn around. They'd also have basic tracking missles and be well armed, but other ships need to be able to outmanuver them. The equivalent of a cloak would be a radar suppressant, which should produce small signature decreases over a very long period of time, like perhaps 3 minutes of 20% decrease.

I think your ideas for garrison are quite good, although you might want to make gunships that can mount the many turrets and are faster and more agile, but can't drop bombs as well(Closest equivalent is probably the Me-110). Just don't forget the machine guns, which occasionally will jam(like when you need to reload /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />)

[Grimmwolf_GB]

Raveen, if you want to make this into an entire core, I suggest buying a real WW2 flight sim. /mrgreen.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="mrgreen.gif" />

[Orion]

QUOTE (Grimmwolf_GB @ Jul 6 2006, 09:00 AM) It does not need much of an explanation, it would be pure fun to fly those machines. If you want to get in the mood, watch Wing Commander - the movie. They have carriers, submarines and ww2 fighters in space. /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

I was thinking the exact same thing when I read schops idea. You'll need to find a talented modeller/texture artist to put tiny Freddie Prinze Jr's in the cockpit.

[CronoDroid]

Because this is purely a game, I would love to see WW2 stuff flying in space with perhaps a PW/EW bonus to compensate for lack o' MISSILES, Engine Overdrive (like Raveen said) which works like Boost only without the FIRE, and funky new noises to make furballs EXCITING.

Invent some sort of hokey Time-Travel story and slap it in to DN, A+, EoR, PC2, ANYTHING!!!

Remember, Retro is COOL!!

Sample Specs (Just an idea)
- 1.2 PW Dmg/Rng
- Nix Flight model (Pitch/Roll)
- Extremely limited sidethrust (To mimic real flying)
- Cheaper tech, longer research
- 0.9 Hull
- No shields
- No Nannage
- 1.25 Speed
- Lotsa turrets
- Kinetic Missile/Bombs (for that WW2 feel)
- 1.4 Agility
- Different kinds of carriers


How's that sound?

[Rakinite]

QUOTE (CronoDroid @ Jul 7 2006, 05:00 AM) Sample Specs (Just an idea)
- 1.2 PW Dmg/Rng
- Nix Flight model (Pitch/Roll)
- Extremely limited sidethrust (To mimic real flying)
- Cheaper tech, longer research
- 0.9 Hull
- No shields
- No Nannage
- 1.25 Speed
- Lotsa turrets
- Kinetic Missile/Bombs (for that WW2 feel)
- 1.4 Agility
- Different kinds of carriers
How's that sound?

Sounds pretty good. Myself, I'd tone down the speed(maybe 1.15) and buff acceleration. I'd also incorporate the shield points into the hull(figs with 540 base hull, no shields). Just don't make the tech too long... maybe 5 minutes tops, and it should be relatively well balanced.

[jgbaxter]

http://www.freeallegiance.org/oldforums/mo...pic&t=21324

NationStates Core; extrapolating on current tech to the future more or less. I've been scratching the surface bit by bit.

Not exactly what you were thinking perhaps, since instead of current tech extrapolation you'll do the same with WWii tech, which is probably the same, kinda. /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />