Overall game design from YOUR perspective

The land-based version of Allegiance, under construction.
juckto
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Location: NZ

Post by juckto »

And I think having a whole bunch of infantry running around would make it impossible for me to play with a community of players from all around the world.
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Usually though, "skill" is used to covertly mean "match the game exactly to my level of competence." Anyone who is at all worse than me should fail utterly (and humorously!) and anyone better is clearly too caught up in the game and their opinions shouldn't count.
fuzzylunkin1

Post by fuzzylunkin1 »

juckto wrote:
QUOTE (juckto @ Jan 29 2009, 05:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
And I think having a whole bunch of infantry running around would make it impossible for me to play with a community of players from all around the world.


Why would a bunch of vehicles be different?
WhiskeyGhost
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Location: Gulf Coast, guess which one?

Post by WhiskeyGhost »

From my perspective, it would function similarly to how Savage does.

You start off with a main central HQ style base, your Garrison.

At this point, you build some basic things for your base, using constructors (and perhaps an engineer class to speed things along?), such as power plants (1 would only be necessary for a base unless you want to build an intricate automated defense setup, or want an advanced tech lab), barracks (increases respawn rate, maximum crew pool), a refinery with an automated miner that comes with it, and maybe an armory (to increase the usefulness of your infantry, via equipment, and upgrades).

You would send out engineers, scouts, basic infantry to do all the exploring and escorts, and resource miners (AI driven) will search out and scavenge materials from various sources (whether it be a field, structure, or perhaps even debris), which may have varying value. Scouts will drop EWS devices and provide a good Line of Sight and find alephs/aleph generators, soldiers will escort cons/engineers to other sectors, and the engineers will repair/build the constructors once a suitable location is found for it.

(Constructors will contain all the materials needed to build the structure, and come with automated internally working drones to put everything together, but at a slow rate, meaning engineers are a must for a rapid base deployment.)

At this point, both sides will either keep expanding to secure resources and good offensive/defensive positions, build a technology base (with an appropriate location for it, i.e. a somewhat intact alien building), or if necessary, build a vehicle yard for access to basic vehicles (ATV's for scouts/engineers, some light raiding vehicles for soldiers) to help make them more effective, or research a weak form of basekilling equipment from your Garrison (such as a "bomber" class of soldier, that carries demolition charges for damaging bases. ).

Tech bases would yield some noticeable improvements and various things depending on the techpath used (new soldier classes/new vehicles/upgrades), in a somewhat similar manner Allegiance already does.

So basically, you'd end up with Supremacy tech increasing your weapons/mobility (artillery for base killing [note:not necessarily long ranged], heavier weapons for soldiers/vehicles), Tactical giving you stealth, awareness, and precision/timing weaponry (Stealth/Tactical Bombers vehicles, snipers/marksmen/commandos), and Expansion giving you better speed/durability (Troop Transports for capturing bases, soldiers/vehicles with higher speeds and armor).

In essence, Supremacy will be more focused against enemy vehicles, Tactical will be more focused at ambushing/traps/stealth, and Expansion will be more focused against enemy Infantry.

Shipyard will be the "End Game" choice if all else fails, and you can afford the high amount of resource costs for it, sorta like a "Superweapon" in other RTS games, where it's primary use is to end games via pure brute force when everything else fails.


That pretty much sums it up without getting into heavy amounts of detail.
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Rand0m_Numb3r wrote:QUOTE (Rand0m_Numb3r @ Aug 9 2007, 12:27 AM)CURSES I HAVE BEEN DEFEATED!
Valiance
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Post by Valiance »

i like the idea of being able to do more than just build a base; customising it with extra barrack space, trenches to stop tanks, power plants for whatever and stuff like that would be awesome =]

I particularly like the idea of an intricate defence system; adds a whole new set of strats to the game
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Virex
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Post by Virex »

I've mainly been thinking about the backstory of Quantus, and here's what I've come up with sofar:

Quants; Eparis Delta
Benherd Index: 2190-EpAQ-14C
Zerman-classification: [1,23-0,982-1,74-0,0145-0,273] (Distance to star, Mass, Inclanation of trajectory, Eccentricity of rajectory, Albedo).
Quantus is technicaly a Rasada 3 class planet, of type Habitable-3. But due to the fact that it is still inhabitable to a large extent, it has been given the special class of Rasada 2.5. It orbits the star Eparis at aproximately 1,23 AU.
Quantus has 2 natural satelites and several orbiting artifacts. The 2 natural satelites, Fermani and Ruthirfon are comparable in size to Io and Calysto respectively. Both lack an atmosphere, but they show sings of artifacts dating back to the Rasadan period.
Orbiting artifacts include an equatorial and polar conencted ring system with 4 orbital elevators and 5 artificial aleph stations, as well as numerous gun platforms, shipyards and Sling Gates. Several unidentified artifacts still remain, of which one is possibly a refinery and another one is possibly a processing station.
Tost notable about these artifacts is that several of them incorperate desings and systems that have not yet been seen amongst the 4 known races of the Rasadan period, indicating there might have been another race active at Quantus.

It's most notable natural features are it's strongly radioactive surface and corosive atmosphere. But of more importance are the alien artifacts dating back to the Rasadan period. These are amongst others large energy domes that are capable of sustaining an habitable atmosphere, actvie artifical alephs and several large citty-complexes. It is possible that the core of Quantus contains a smelter, but this has not yet been confirmed.

Quantus' surface consitst of 3 major continents, named Bohrin, Einstis and Brogyl. Einstis is the northmost continent, separated from Bohrin by a shallow sea. Bohrin's a narrow, snakelike continent, raning from Einstis in the north to accros quantus's south pole. Bohrin's a slightly smaller continent directly oposit of Einstis acros the equator. A fourth continent, named Palenck, seems to have been destroyed. all that remains now are several submerged domes and a string of islands.

Bohrin contains the highest concentration of artifacts and domes. It is considered to be the old capital of Quantus and it's almost completely covered in scturctures. It also seems to have been damaged most during the Rasadan period. It's orbital elavator is still working, though all artificial alephs conecting to other continents or the rings seem to be inactive.
Einstis seems to be rich in mineral deposits and contains many small structures. It's been theorised that these structures once served as independent mining systems. They are capable of mainating a habitable atmosphere within a small radius around them.
The structures present on Brogyl seem to be of a completely different type as those on the other continent. Brogyl is also the only content where combat vehicles have been found in large numbers.

The original inhabitants of Quantus seemed to be a race aproximatly 1,3 times as large as a human, and they had hands. Much more isn't known of their physiology, but many structures have been found that could have been hospitals, so further research might disclose more information.
They appear to be exceptionaly skilled with enrgy manipulation, since the domes they once built are still standing at their alephs still work. It appears that they used the Lithium that's naturaly abundant on Quantus to drive a Deutirium-Tritium fusion based energy net, though several artifacts indicate that they were in the process of switching to a He-3 fusion energy net. Lithium and He-3 is still stored in abbundance in some artifacts.

The Rasadan period:
A xenoarcheological period dated at aproximately 2,140,000 earthyears ago, named after the human Xenoarcheologist Eran Rasada. The period appears to have been an exceptionaly violent one, and many Kosmohistrici believe it would best be described as a period of intergalactic war. Analasys of remaining orbital and interplanetary scturctures indicated that at least 4 races have took part in this war, none of which remain today.
Though no sentient races remain that date back to the rasadan period, many artifacts can still be found, especialy in the second arm and 3th central zone of the milkyway. Nearly all these artifact appear to have been build or modified for large-scale combat and isotope analasys indicates that nearly all of the smaller structures and remaining vehicles have been constructed with materials comming from 2 star systems, though these systems have not yet been identified. In general, larger objects have been constructed from materials comming from the system they inhabit though there are exceptions.
A Rasadan planet is any planet who bears marks dating back to the rasadan period. There are 5 normal types of Rasadan planets, and 2 special types
Type 1 are planets that have been actively used, but who bear no marks of combat.
Type 2 Rasadan planets show sings of active combat, but they are still stable enough to support life, with proper acomadations.
Type 3 Rasadan planets have been damaged to such an extent that they have become uninhabitable. Most of the type 3 planets have lost their atmosphere and are strongly radio-active.
Type 4 planets are planets who's orbit, axial tilt, mass, rotation or tectonic structure have been changed drasticly.
Type 5 Planets are planets that have been completely destroyed during the Rasadan period. Usualy, this name is used to refere to objects that were once a part of a type 5 planet.
Of the special types, R-type planets refere to planets that have "gone rouge" during the Rasadan period, which means they have been ejected from their star system, and A-type planets are suspected to be of artificial nature. No known A-type planets exist, but there are several planetoids that appear to be A-type objects.
Thusfar it seems all planets that could be capable of sustaining life are rasadan planets of class 3 or 4, with the exceptions of Quantus, and possibly the R-type planet Namex.
Last edited by Virex on Sat Jan 31, 2009 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
finnbryant
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Post by finnbryant »

lots of cool ideas! :)


Juckto:
Heres the thing: I'm not trying to make alleg on the ground, I'm trying to make what alleg would have been, had it been ground based, there is an important distinction. As a read of the dev journals will tell you, when the devs made alleg, they had loads of ideas, then slowly weeded them down into a good game, they then kept that game in beta while they carefully crafted it into the game we know and love. Do you really believe that had they made a ground based game on what would have been considered *very* high powered computers which have broadband connections, they would have made the same decisions, kept the same ideas (or even had the same ideas in the first place)?
example: LOS.
They obviously realised that upon entering a sector, you would be able to look around and see everyone who was in the sector, sectors couldn't be any bigger, since that would make the fps part of the game-play unfeasible (big sectors = fast ships = no close range fighting) so they solved the problem by making people invisible until that came within a certain range, good decision.
This game, however is ground based, which opens up an infinite number of other ways of limiting the visibility of enemies, many of which mean a skilled player could actually improve their chances of succeeding over a less skilled player (having a good eye and knowing where to point it) this makes the gameplay more player orientated, which is good. It does mean we have to spend lots of time balancing it so that good players arnt too good/newbies arnt too useless, it may even turn out to be too hard to balance, but I don't think that is something we can know before trying, and I would love to find out it works.
btw, I'm not suggesting that probes/scanners will have no place, they will still do exactly the same job, just that human contralled units will not be able to rely on the fact that there isn't a well placed tank behind that building.
Do you still disagree with this? if so, why?

as for infantry, I plan to implement them pretty much no matter what, perhaps they will become pods only, and perhaps they will become integral to the game, but remember, so far no-one has really suggested that infantry will be able to fight on an even grounding with vehicles, and since vehicles will be free, infantry will almost certainly not be the main fighting force. Infantry will be the scouts and stealths of quantus, the ints and figs will be vehicles, you could take on a tank as infantry if you want, and you may take it out with a well placed mine perhaps (or if your a tac infantry, a well placed mortar), but to be honest... your going to get yourself podded in a head on fight


virex: did you mean to say quantus would be type 2 then? also inhabitable means you can live there, so you probably meant uninhabitable where you used it ;) intresting and well thought out ideas, but could they be incorporated into the current storyline i wonder?
Last edited by finnbryant on Sat Jan 31, 2009 1:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
HSharp
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Post by HSharp »

I'm pretty sure Caddi has all the goodies about Quantus the planet (and airline) about history and storyline for the factions as well, check his blog if you dare!
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Virex
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Post by Virex »

Finn Bryant wrote:
QUOTE (Finn Bryant @ Jan 31 2009, 02:19 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
virex: did you mean to say quantus would be type 2 then? also inhabitable means you can live there, so you probably meant uninhabitable where you used it ;) intresting and well thought out ideas, but could they be incorporated into the current storyline i wonder?

Changed inhabitable to uninhabitable. Thanks for pointing that out.

The thing with quantus is, as you can read, that it's technicaly a type 3 planet, but the domes give it a special kind of status. I'll be reworking that part of the text.

As to how this ties into the rest of the storyline, as far as I know, the texts Cadi has written doesn't quite mention a lot about the past of Quantus. It does however mention the fact that Quantus is the only planet capable of suporting life. There have also been ideas for alien structures. I tried to incorperate these ideas into a consistent background story, without deviating to far from the original information. If you read Cadi's parts, you'll see that he mainly focused on the background of the factions.

As for infantry, they also have the advantage of being able to pass terain that tanks can't. I'm mainly thinking of thick forrests, urban area's and mountains. Tanks might be more powerfull in direct combat, but that doesn't help much if you're being pounded upon by units you can't hit, which is pretty common in citties. Also, remember that we're aiming for a gameplay in which the amount of kills you make is less important then your ability to help the team. Being able to reach the enemy base from behind and disrupt something important wheighs much more then being able to kill 5 enemies out in the fields.
Also, in a tanks you might be able to make more kills, but you'll have to take the flat road through the minefield in order to get to the enemy. If you were an infantry you could circumvent the minefield by going over the hills, and take the enemy by surprise. And being less armoured doesn't matter if you manage to get two AT-rounds in before your opponent can respond.
Last edited by Virex on Sat Jan 31, 2009 10:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
fuzzylunkin1

Post by fuzzylunkin1 »

Finn Bryant wrote:
QUOTE (Finn Bryant @ Jan 30 2009, 07:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Infantry will be the scouts and stealths of quantus, the ints and figs will be vehicles


This is a good starting point, in my opinion.
Valiance
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Joined: Sun Nov 30, 2008 4:06 pm

Post by Valiance »

have pods as infantry, but let anyone be able get out of vehicles at any time, sort of like podding themself, so they can pickup tech, place a land mine or steal someone elses deserted vehicle
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