Eternal Struggle: Landing Operations 0.194
Posted: 12 Mar 2011, 00:51
Hi fellow Forum-users,
after working 2 years on this game i think its far enough to present it here.
First things first: its still far from finished and like my last project ( Eternal Struggle ), i doubt it will ever be 1.0. Having said that, the 0.186 version is playable and has about 22 units in one Faction to play with.
I mainly started this game/mod because i wanted to model some tank designs i had in mind for some time, and get away from spaceships. So while this mod is playable and i like working on it, it suffers from the same problems ES had. At the beginning i wanted to actually finish ESLO before showing it, but as he time passed it got more and more unlikely to finish it in the next ... well with my workspeed: decade. And since i haven┬┤t done anything big on it since 3 months i decided to post it now ( or never ) to get some feedback and hint/tips on the bug/feature stuff.
In addition to the slow workspeed i wanted a few gameplaymechanics, which i guess are possible with the magic of LUA. And since i dont know anything about this stuff, it drags a finished 1.0 far out of sight.
A few things i wanted:
- Tactical weapons/abilities like Ground Controle II ( good old Nuke, EMP, temporarily Vision, Cloaking, etc)
- third resource which you collect by killing units, used for the tactical abilities
- neutral buildings, spawned on geospots, capture for continual third resource income ( something like fibre does )
- squads
- Dropship ( units can get ordered anywhere on the battlefield )
- a gui ( tried chilli... saw much of code... panicked...)
Thing i will do:
- second faction ( made some models already... good sign )
- unit names
Gameplay
The gameplay is very close to TA atm, only a lot simpler unit-wise. Metal-extractors generate metal from Metal-spots, power plants generate energy, labs build units etc. I┬┤m afraid it does not bring anything new in this department atm.
You start with a single construction truck, which can build a bit faster than the normal version which you can build with the Spaceport.
Reclaiming units is as effective as in other TA like mods.
Since most units cant see as far as they shoot, scouting in and before a fight is important.
There is no teching, no capturing, no resurrection.
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Units
Buildings
Spaceport: The Spaceport serves as a guarded Landing Zone where ground vehicles get transported in from the orbiting fleet. It also houses a single Fieldreactor, which provides energy. The Transportship provides a bit defense as long as it is around the LZ.
Air Support Platform: As the heart of any airforce you can "build" the aircrafts here. Additionally it can repair damaged aircrafts and has two anti air weapons.
Fieldreactor: Provides energy.
Mining Facillity: Extracts metal.
Storage: Adds additional energy and metal storage capacity. It can also work as an metal-generator.
Radar: Very important building. Most units have a longer weapon- than sight range. Therefore it can give you quite an advantage in combat situations.
Defence turret: Cheap tower which uses the same weapon as the transporter. With its long range and slow aiming speed its mainly useful against slower units. It can attack airunits, but it seldomly hits its target.
Stealth defence turret: Additional to the ability to cloak it has also a faster aiming and firing speed. The main weakness would be the short range and the fact that it does not attack airunits.
Airdefence Bunker: Shoots long ranged, fast and versatile missiles against airunits. After eight missiles it has to reload. While it is dug in its a very sturdy turret.
Shieldgenerator: This building takes quite a lot of energy ( circa 5 Fieldreactors ) to generate a shield, which can cover whole bases and take a lot of hits before failing. The main weakness is its inability to block attacks once enemy units have crossed the barrier.
Ground vehicles
Construction truck: Builds all buildings, can reclaim, assist and repair.
Scout: A fast and versatile vehicle, armed with an weak but fast firing gun. Its main purpose is to extend the vision of stronger units, harass lone construction trucks and additional airdefence.
Raidbike: Fastest and cheapest ground unit, armed with unguided rockets. Good against buildings.
Hovertank: Light tank with the benefits of hover technology. Its Gun has a long reach and can penetrate shields.
Missiletank: Also a hover unit. Its guided missiles are the main anti-air weapon which can also attack ground.
EMP-Artillerytank: Shoots rounds with a high trajectory which stun enemy units. In addition it can cloak itself.
Assaulttank: Besides haveing the second strongest armor in the game so far, the Assaulttank is also equipped with a cloaking device. This way it can get close enough to its enemies, overcoming its rather short weaponrange.
Heavy assault tank: There is nothing subtle about this unit. It has the biggest armor, biggest gun, biggest cost. Its main weakness is its moving and aiming speed. But once it joins the fray its hard to stop.
MARS: A hovercraft with a long range missile launcher. After building up, it has a longer firing range than any other unit. The missiles are unguided, but have a big area damage. Being slow while moving and stationary while firing, MARS are easy targets for other artillery and airunits.
Shield-hovercraft: The Shield-hovercraft supports moving units with an shield which prevents enemys from firing at units inside it. They are a good way to prevent heavy losses by bombers and artillery while moving a army.
Air vehicles
Transporter: The main task of this unit is to transport groundunits. Additionally the tough armor allows it to be used as an meatshield for smaller aircrafts.
Bomber: Good against groups of groundunits and buildings.
Flare: Only fights airunits with a fast firing mainweapon and a light missilelauncher. Cheap and fast, its hard to hit with ground based antiair. (Still a placeholder model from ES)
Gunship: This unit is both usefull against groups of enemy units with its unguided rockets and fast small units. like the raidbike, with its turret-mounted weapon.
Heavy Gunship: The nature of the two beam-type weapons make it a strong unit against larger targets or still-standing units. In addition to that it can also repair and reclaim.
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Balancing suggestions and criticism are welcome.
All models and textures in there get released under the CC BY-NC 2.0. So if anyone wants to use the stuff for his one purposes, go for it. Th only thing i would ask of you: if you mod the game please, change the name in a way so that it is clear its not the original version. The rest ( LUA ) is under the license the creators put on it.
If there are any license specific problems( f.e. Dont GPL compatible... ), please tell me.
I used some effects and LUA from CA/ZK, hope there is no problem with that. Special thanks to the guys who made them.
Namely: KDR_11k ( endGame.locals.lua, trails.locals.lua, afewmore)
JK ( chilli, Iconmakerthingi)
FLOZi (resource.lua)
..and a few more i forgot...
Please excuse my bad English.
Hope that covers everything so far.
Downloadlink:
http://springfiles.com/spring/games/ete ... operations