Overall game design from YOUR perspective

The land-based version of Allegiance, under construction.
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finnbryant
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Post by finnbryant »

i just want to know what different people imagine the game being like. Dont explain a complex tech path here, theres already a thread for that.

heres mine(dont attempt to compromise when making yours, im only posting this because i get the feeling everyone expects a different game and we need to work out what it will actually be like:

sectors: big spherical domes, im not good at distance estimations, but 2-3 km diameter? sectors should have enough room that you cant just enter the sector and immediately know whats in there.
The terrain of sectors would be "painted" by the map maker, the game would procedurally finish it by adding the trees to the forest, adding sand dunes or rocks and making mountains jagged and rocky. the maker would be able to move terrain up and down too. (this isnt as hard as it might seem, in panda3d ive got a procedural forest generator someone had made as an example, its not impossible to get your head around) the reason for this is that we dont have enough people to make that many maps, and if we want maps with interesting terrain that actually affect gameplay, we need it to be detailed. after the generator has done its work, the map maker could add the interesting features like ancient alien buildings or huge skeletons or w/e.

buildings: true size (another reason for large sectors) since they would have to have seemless entry (no loading screen to enter a base)

economy: i honestly don't know, helium hotspots? C&C like mining trucks?

movement: since sectors would be large, infantry movement would be tricky, so i think a lot of fast open topped and weaponless wehicles could be allowed for infantry. (of course, giga could have a stylish range of hoverboards!)

weapons: troops would have a limited capacity for weapons, thats the alleg way. maybe a mximum of 2 large and 1 small weapon, 5 auxillary slots?
nan would be an infantry weapon.


but how would you do this stuff, sectors is the main bit really as thats what will get coded first.
Last edited by finnbryant on Fri Jan 16, 2009 4:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Hockfire
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Post by Hockfire »

QUOTE
buildings: true size (another reason for large sectors) since they would have to have seemless entry (no loading screen to enter a base)[/quote]
Bases must be big enough to at least fit a Tank (Largest small-base vehicle) in their red/green door halls (at most 2, side-by-side). Not to mention all the infantry from enemy HTT's.

QUOTE
economy: i honestly don't know, helium hotspots? C&C like mining trucks?[/quote]
I've been wandering on wikipedia about collecting He3 and it seems it can be mined by lithium spallation, as is, collapsing lithium and then picking up the pieces of it and filtering He3. Lithium doesn't has much He3 on it, but perhaps there could be a special mineral on Quantus that contains a high value of He3 and that could be mined and treated like this to obtain it. The He3 sites then would be no more than piles of this material. There is also the option of collecting He3 from abandoned Alien Refineries.
Building Sites: Rock formations of uranium, silicon and carbon? I always thought of it as a pile of natural mineral formation sticking out like a small mound or mountain from flat terrain, and the constructor would just start drilling its way into the rocks and the build sphere equivalent would pop up.

QUOTE
sectors: big spherical domes, im not good at distance estimations, but 2-3 km diameter? sectors should have enough room that you cant just enter the sector and immediately know whats in there.[/quote]
This reminds me, we haven't decided how foliage and vegetation will look like. After all, this is a totaly diferent planet, and it can't be all desert.

QUOTE
weapons: troops would have a limited capacity for weapons, thats the alleg way. maybe a mximum of 2 large and 1 small weapon, 5 auxillary slots?
nan would be an infantry weapon.[/quote]
I think we should only allow 1 main arm and one sidearm (like the Glock for Giga dare made)and the usual gadgets (Binoculars, Grenades), and pods only get to keep the sidearm. People who bring in Heavy machine guns need to deploy and un-deploy them (setting up the tripod and such) so the HMG's won't become cheese (Miniguns, like the IC one, are way too heavy and have way to power to be hand-held, and besides, it adds a nice feature to the game - of course, we could have an SMG for the people who don't want to carry their behemoth down the road.)

I also had a nice idea for the IC Anti-Tank Launcher (and all heat-mode weapons) - let's say it's missile tracks with the aid of a laser aiming module, module which tracks temperature on objects. A Tank, being stationary, moving, or firing, produces enough heat in it's engines to be locked on all the time, so there is no real nerf to the stuff the Anti-Tank was created to. However, if we assume small vehicles (scouts, etc) only generate enough heat when moving or firing, and not stationary, then a person cannot use the Anti-Tank against a scout if that scout is inactive, adding dynamism to the gameplay. With Infantry, it can only lock when a unit fires it's gun, making it harder to hit infantry with Anti-Tank weaponry. (Gigacorp's Anti-Tank (AT) is made of energy shells and doesn´t need to lock, so this feature only works for heat-guided missiles, projectiles and the likes)

I also thought on adding a second firing mode for each gun. For example, activate the secondary mode on a Gigacorp Sniper and the zoom lens display heat values. On the IC one, when the secondary mode is activated you can burst 3 rounds at a slight precision drop. The Gigacorp's A-T could fire two modes: energy bullets, which do regular damage, and energy bullets mixed with a metal alloy, which would damage armor better, and shield worse, than the energy-only bullets... and so on, adding even more dynamism to the gameplay.
sambasti
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Post by sambasti »

The sniper sneaks through the bush. He scans the surroundings with his binauculars. Wait, whats that, he accidentally spotts an enemy htt. He also finds some infantry nans following. He takes out his sniper rifle.

On a related note, we need to figure out how stealth can take out vehicles. I imagine they are pretty good against nans, with sniper taking out more than half health in one shot, but it seems like the slow firing sniper bullets would just bounce of vehicles.
finnbryant
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Post by finnbryant »

ive thought about that, what if they carry a small mortar? they could enter f3 and a marker would overlay on the ground where it hits, then they can rain anti-tank destruction from the sky :) , maybe leaving a slight smoke trail so they don't get it too easy. also, would be low accuracy so not good against troops, and have relatively low ammo.

as for folliage, could do whatever, maybe they have collected folliage from many planets so theres lots of diversity, including some from earth. and giant mushrooms, since they would be cool.

good outline on the base building, i suppose outposts and teles could go wherever there's a clearing big enough.

your helium plan sounds good.
Last edited by finnbryant on Sat Jan 17, 2009 10:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
sambasti
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Post by sambasti »

I just realised an even bigger problem. How will sniper armed infantry kill miners. I feel that although motars can replace hunters, they really are in no way a util cannon.
Makida
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Post by Makida »

They have a special weapon which punctures the miner's storage tanks and causes a massive explosion from the pressure. It does little damage to anything else.
Blackdutch
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Post by Blackdutch »

maybe something to slow the miner down for a while, and making it more vulnerable to mortar fire, making it easier to both hit the miner and kill it. (50% speed reduction, maybe?)

obviously, that slowing down effect would hardly effect other units at all (let's say, 0.5% speed reduction on them)
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HSharp
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Post by HSharp »

Originally I thought the idea was basically having Allegiance on land with tanks replacing ships, infantry is nice and would be a good part of the game especially as everyone wants base captures to be battles, however the main point is to replace the ship based allegiance stuff with tanks.

So sniper != stealth fighter, stealth fighter = stealth tank! previous ideas of stealth tanks was to have them have hover/anti-grav engines thus not leave a visible mark of there they have been and can keep in time with requiring energy i.e. energy required to cloak and activate anti-grav, and of course all bios vehicles equipped with anti-grav :P .

Sniper is good at taking out infantry, not so good at taking out vehicles, stealth tank however comes equipped with utl cannons which are good at taking out utility vehicles, and can also equip sniper cannon which damages tank's very well.

Also I think infantry unless anti-tank will not have a great chance at taking out enemy tanks, but unless tanks are equipped with machine-guns/flamethrower/explosives will have a tough time at taking out infantry a bit like in original red alert where a regular rifleman slowly damage tanks, but tanks slowly damage infantry because they are smaller targets, however rocketeer is good vs tanks (still not good at surviving getting run over :P ) but an APC which comes with mounted machinegun can make short work of them.
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sambasti
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Post by sambasti »

Actually, I thought we would have tanks be a slower, more hvy fire version of infantry. Infantry would also be more mobile than a tank. I definitely think infantry stealth should be able to take out tanks (motars) and miners (Undetermined).
finnbryant
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Post by finnbryant »

personally, I think Quantus should be *inspired* by Allegiance, not a clone of Allegiance... with wheels. So I'm trying to keep my mind open to doing things differently.
That said, this is more "core" really, and right now what matters is game engine stuff. Sectors/environment in particular since that is the first thing I'll be doing.
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