Hi spring-players, bots and devs,
I haven'T jet found a game which is perfect.
And because Spring is essentially dying (<20 players most times - without BA-DSD specs) there needs to be something new.
Who knows Warhammer40k?
I played "WH40k - Dark Crusade" and I don't want a free clone, but some game elements are really neat.
But it lacks the power from spring widgets (formation move/fight, line-queuing of build orders, ...) and tanks tend to spread out over 2 screens and 3 different roads, ...
One funny bug is that it is impossible to self-d finished units and buildings in WH40K. You can trap a limited-builds unit which also blocks your population cap until some enemy is nice to you and kills it (except Eldar which can relocate buildings and some units ;D)
I really want a game like this with access to the source and I can make it, but only without the models but I haven't decided jet how to make it unique enough.
I am interested into a mod/game which utilizes (moral|endurance) and survivability (based on probability) instead of HP and more detailed units.
. . not necessarily Warhammer++, it should have another lore and maybe other units/factions/models/... (it's copyrighted anyway).
. . and there may also be less details about control zones and neither instant reinforcements on the battlefield or different emphasis on technology research.
But one thing I don't want to touch are technologies which automatically upgrade existing units.
- In WH40k, you have 2-3 Gardist-platoons and then you research armour MK2 for about the cost of 1 basic 4/10 filled platoon and not only have a 50% stronger army, but also a cheaper supply.
––– The idea –––
It's 2150 and 420 billion humans live for 200 years and want to have at least 5 childs. Apparently, this creates and exponential problem.
Politicians created BattleWorlds, a war game in distant, dying worlds - and all agreed that it was the only possible solution for peoples who want more than 2 childs.
- This solves the problem why everybody arrives at the same time with no technologies "researched" at the battle-field.
- And why everything has to start over and over again in the same place
Instead of Arm/Core, you can build everything (like in Zero-K), but you have to stick to the exclusive choice you made - for some time.
- If you have A+B and only 2 of A+B+C are allowed, C is put on a 2 minute CD which does not start counting down until A+B + sub-elements are lost/destroyed and which is reset if the lost/destroyed is replaced before it ends.
- A could be ultra-fast (but a bit weaker) raiders
- B could be a stealthy invisible ranger platoon (light attrition damage to units)
- C could be a Tank which destroys the formation (breaks the moral and increase the part of damage dealt to the lowest-health unit).
Movement should be rewarded.
- Limited number of mexes and metal-spots should generate 1m/s and fill a Buffer which can hold 200metal which can get depleted by a mex (like red annihilation, just with a limit on the buffer).
- Building a mex elsewhere after one gets destroyed should always be more rewarding than rebuilding it at the same spot (rewards porc).
- I think this makes the battlefield more dynamic than the ever-same BA-DSD porc wars before T3.
Less units, more micro+details on each (more like EvolutionRTS).
Each platoon can have build-options (for situational extra weapons).
Garrisons: Every building can contain infantry which is damaged when the buildings "Core HP" are damaged (about "Core HP", see below)
You get a fixed rate of infantry. If you don't use them on the battle-field because you don't have the resources to properly equip them, they might still give you a little extra fire-power with a cheap hand-gun.
Obstacles between attacker and selected target are not completely blocking, except for garrisoned targets.
If an obstacle is between you and the enemy, the one which is closer gets a defence bonus.
. distance/distance>=0.7 -> damage=1.0
. distance/distance=0.5 -> damage=0.6
. distance/distance<=0.3 -> damage=0.4
The rest is applied to the obstacle. Vehicles can not use cover.
Note:
- For evasion, damage is mostly handled like a percentage of projectiles which hit, not like a lower-damage projectile.
- But for cover, the unit is able to hide the most vulnerable parts, thus it's calculated like a lower-damage projectile and the unit becomes "heavier" with it's armour-level.
Transports where no unit can not fire from inside out are dumb.
Towers:
- Towers can have a reduced cost, but their main advantage should be a separate/lower unit-capacity usage and much higher HP.
- Towers should have different morph-levels of fortification.
- For strength-balance, towers can have a higher ammo capacity or regeneration (higher fire rate than units), but not stronger guns than tanks (cuz mitigation).
- Towers can have an accuracy bonus (+10/20/30% accuracy/range) and thus choose to engage at a higher range than tanks/heavy-/light- infantry.
- Towers can have a lot more HP (burrowed - dirt does not cost much) because you can choose to not fight it.
- The more spare energy you have, the lower the accuracy (and higher the range) at which energy towers engage (ask the "Where does power do the most damage"-central-intelligence).
- Towers with ammunition can be supplied by underground pipelines supply-carrier or troops with compatible weapons. They try to spend as much % ammo as they have (%*1.25) hp lost and engage further if they have more ammo, lower range if they have less than that ratio.
HP system which offers more details (maybe call them "Survivability points"?)
- Units have 4 HP-segments: Core, Structure, Slots, Plating.
- Plating mitigates some damage from fast attackers (but takes at least 25% (heavy) or 50% (medium) of the dealt damage). It costs few energy to repair.
- + if plating is below 100%, an equal % of damage penetrates into the structure part.
- The structure is damaged after the plating and does not mitigate damage. It costs a lot of energy to repair.
- + damage can also bleed into the core part.
- If the core is damaged, the unit loses equal % of firepower, move speed ... Repair works only in a factory or hangar (except self-repair).
- + redundancy can avoid that anything takes more than x% damage from a single shot if it is a "piercing shot" (mitigation<damage<hp).
- Slots are damaged if the structure or plating is damaged. This covers weapons you purchase separately.
Energy, Moral, Ammunition more detailed (except for static weapon batteries).
- Each unit creates energy relative to Core health.
- While moving, less energy is left.
- Energy-Weapon capacitors are charged with the energy which is left while chemically driven weapons have ammunition.
- Both weapon types stockpile between 0.0 and at least 1.3 to make it more fluid.
- Units can have more ineffective burst-weapons which catch huge amounts of excess charge, especially when a unit is not moving/firing.
- Moral deficit lowers accuracy and evasion.
Infantry or tanks?, in most games it's only a choice of unit stats.
But in real life, would you choose to suicide a fighter-pilot or a dozen peoples on ground?
- Supply of infantry should be limited by reinforcements over time.
- You get a number of peoples every now and then and you can equip or train them how you like (The fast training requires brain-downloads and that is why everybody has the same skill ).
- If you want more power and have spare resources, build vehicles for your soldiers.
Unit-Orders (improvements):
- Don't choose an order (fight, move) for a unit - choose a preference for your platoon (platoon = same type of units which try to stay in formation)
- Don't choose (hold position | move forth+back) for a unit, but queue an order to override the chosen.
Don't-Follow-But-Move command:
. Imagine melee-units like (StarWars)Jedi mixed with ranged units like a Trooper. If they follow, they might run into towers.
. But they should still be able to retreat from danger and go back to the position they were.
. They should be able to move in a circle between the position they retreated to to stay out of range and the position of their last move order if the enemy runs into that circle.
. A guarding unit shouldn't follow the unit to guard, but go ahead of it and scout a little bit further.If one unit guards another, they should recognize each other and the unit which is targeted.
. A melee should both try to approach the target and let the guarded ranged unit go away, they should pass each other peacefully. It should intercept the ones following the guarded by moving left or right around the guarded.
––– The lore (just a draft) –––
2015, Earth had about 7.3 billion peoples
Since 2040 our food-supply and medical technologies advanced together with artificial-intelligences and in 2060, we only spent 1/5 as time for producing food and survive any trial of nature to reduce the size of our population.
2080 every Human was able to produce food, recycle everything and replicate anything with "Magic", the ultimate technology.
"Magic" is an implant that reads the human mind and injects knowledge about the price in "Mana", the new currency and exchange model which evolved from BitCoin and is now used by the majority of Humanity to measure the impact on matter, energy and time compared to the total of what each and all living humans posses.
If you can synthesize any amounts of anything (including food and living materials or houses), uniqueness is most valuable.
2100, 30 billion humans were alive simultaneously.
But this is not how a human is supposed to live. We weren't made for that. You don't want everybody being able to reproduce a weapon of mass-destruction.
If everyone has 10+ childs on average before an accidental death (or out of boredom), humans will again get greedy for resources.
2121, 94.2 billion humans are able to travel in the "Sea of Worlds" which includes not only World-Space but also short distances trough Warp-Space.
(3) Earth's surface has been converted into Biological Solar-Pannels Computronium, Space-Ships and retro-nature-reservations.
Finally, the now-immortal humans were human-enough to revert Earth back to what it was like 2000 and created a huge museum.
(4) Mars has been colonized and terraformed.
(2) Venus has been colonized with flying cities utilizing vacuum-balloons (it has a heavy atmosphere).
2150, 420 billion humans were alive (mostly childs of immortals) and the simulations of inter-planetary over-population spread fear.
Because nobody can accidentally get a child anymore, politicians decided that humans are responsible for their impact on population.
They decided that every human should only have 2 childs, no matter how long he lives, except one dies, he got siblings or a genetic relative died with less childs (preferable each human should not have more than 3 childs finally, except the rare case where the third exceptional birth were siblings).
Everybody who wants more than granted, has to participate in BattleWorlds.
BattleWorlds searches for dying Worlds or solar systems where a catastrophe is like a black hole or super-nova is near and fight for their right there, because nobody wanted to ruin peaceful, beautiful worlds.
Every time enough humans died in these battle-worlds, all others which were participating on the opposing side get the right to get 1 more child.
Parents which want to partipate have to wait until all childs are adult (with 30-40 years, depending on character).
Nobody was happy about the decision made. But all agreed that it was the only choice.