Covert-Ops Mod (lots of pics inside, just as a warning.)

[Relinquished]

This page was first about fixing an issue with planes, but that's fixed (thanks to REVENGE) so I decided to turn this into a page for the mod in general.

Covert-Ops is a mod by me with a little help from Apollo_13.

To start, it's aiming to be completely strategic in a few main ways that are slightly different than normal.

1) Units in this game are tiny. Aproximately 1/4th the size of t1 units in AA.

2) All units have an "upkeep" cost which is a set ammount of energy that the unit uses simply to have alive. This makes spamming less of a possibility because you'll drain your economy if you do.

3) Constructors "can't" (they can but not really) help factories build faster. Units have a really large buildtime scale while buildings have a smaller one. This stops players from being able to build one factory and mass-produce. In order to do that you now must build multiple factories.

4) Building units and buildings is EXPENSIVE, and takes a LONG TIME compared to most mods. This makes you have to think carefully about what to build, so you don't waste resources. It also makes storage important.

5) Because of the scale of the units, it takes a long time to move a great distance. This makes air drops useful for attacking by land. Attempting to send a land army across a 16x16 map on this mod will be suicide.

6) Plane speeds are slightly more realistically scaled. They move (on average) about 5 to 6 times faster than land units. However, planes have very little life, and they are very expensive, but they can cause damage if used well.

7) Construction units in this mod are going to be specialists. Each tech level is going to have 3 construction units (excluding the commander). Each one will be able to build different types of buildings. One will build all the players defences/fortifications, another will build the resources and storages, and the last will build factories or any other buildings that don't fit in one of the other categories. They will also be expensive to create. This will cause the player to have to think about what he/she needs most.

This mod is still in a pre-alpha stage, it is playable right now though. The current public version is development is PA4. The units in the version are:

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== OPS UNITS ==

- Commander:

Image of Ops Commander
Your main unit, guard him at all costs. He is the fastest constructor in the game, although he can only build t1 units on his own he can greatly increase the build speed of already-started buildings. Upon his death, his explosion about 1/3 that of a nuke.

- Light Scout Tank (T1 land factory):
Image of Ops Light Scout Tanks
Although not very useful for combat or for scouting across a map, this tank is designed to be scouts in battles. They are used to rush ahead into the on-coming enemy army and see exactly where all their flanks lie. Giving you a chance to react and counter them properly.

- Medium Tank (T1 land factory):
Image of Ops Medium Tanks
The ops tank found on the front line of combat. This tank is quick to build, relatively cheap, and packs quite a punch. It is not only useful on your front lines of battle, but it can support you with a sturdy defence.

- T1 Resource Fabricator (T1 land factory):
Image of Ops T1 Fabricators
The Resource Fabricator is one of the 3 types of builders for the ops race. This one specializes in building resource generator/storage facilities, all in the tier 1 array. This fabricator builds exactly half as fast as the commander.

- T1 Defence Fabricator (T1 land factory):
Image of Ops T1 Fabricators
The Defence Fabricator is one of the 3 types of builders for the ops race. This one specializes in building defences, all in the tier 1 array. This fabricator builds exactly half as fast as the commander.

- T1 Military Fabricator (T1 land factory):
Image of Ops T1 Fabricators
The Military Fabricator is the last of the 3 types of builders for the ops race. This one specializes in building your factories and intel (like radars), all in the tier 1 array. This fabricator builds exactly half as fast as the commander.

- Scout Plane (T1 air factory):
Image of Ops Scout Planes
The main long-distance scouting unit the ops faction uses. Being a plane, this unit can cover long distances quickly. Using the scout plane well will always let you know exactly what the enemy is up to, just make sure you defend yourself from them.

- Light Interceptor (T1 air factory):
Image of Ops Light Interceptors
The basic anti-air fighter. A fairly expensive tier 1 unit for the ops, but it provides the essential anti air a commander needs fairly well. Although the light interceptor may not be the most well armored, there is no matching it's maneuverability.

- Light Transport (T1 air factory):
Image of Ops Light Transports
The first air transport unit for the Ops. It can only carry one unit at a time and has a fairly low cruising altitude compared to other planes, leaving it wide open to AA fire. This is the only transport with no means of weaponry on it.

== RESOURCES ==

- Mini Fusion (Commander and T1 Res. Cons.):
Image of Ops Mini Fusions
The earliest form of energy collection. The mini fusion is quick to build, and sturdy enough.

- Metal Extractor (Commander and T1 Res. Cons.):
Image of Ops Metal Extractor
The earliest form of metal collection. The metal extractor is a semi-durable way to make a quick claim on a metal deposit. It produces a small ammount of metal.

- Mini Energy Storage (Commander and T1 Res. Cons.):
Image of Ops Mini Energy Storages
As the name implies, this building stores energy. 300 units of it to be exact. To keep your economy thriving you're going to need some backup energy just in case the worst happens.

- Mini Metal Storage (Commander and T1 Res. Cons.):
Image of Ops Mini Metal Storages
Same as the Mini Energy Storage, except for the fact that this one holds all of your extra metal.

== DEFENCES ==

- Lesser Lightning Tower (Commander and T1 Def. Cons.):
Image of Ops Lesser Lightning Towers
This tower is the first form of land defence seen in the game. It is a quick way to claim, although not to secure, a piece of land as your own. It is short-ranged, and can stand up to a few t1 units on its own.

- Light Anti Air (Commander and T1 Def. Cons.):
Image of Ops Light Anti Air Towers
The weakest form of anti air defence in the game. It takes quite a while to build, but none the less it is still essential to hold off early air raids or scouting parties. Although this tower won't hold up in prolonged combat, it can quickly take down weaker enemy air swarms due to its rate of fire.

== FACTORIES ==

- T1 Land Factory (Commander and T1 Mil. Cons.):
Image of Ops T1 Land Factory
As the name implies, this is the first land unit factory to be built in the game. It can produce all the basic land based units for the ops faction. It can also take quite a beating before being destroyed.

- T1 Air Factory (Commander and T1 Mil. Cons.):
Image of Ops T1 Air Factory
The first air unit factory the game sees. This factory produces all the basic air units for the ops faction. Air units are highly expensive to build, but prove very useful if used correctly.

== MISC ==

- T1 Radar Tower (Commander and T1 Mil. Cons.):
Image of Ops T1 Radar Tower
The T1 radar tower provides short-ranged radar coverage for the Ops race. Radar is expensive to leave running, although it can prove useful since you can see on coming enemy attacks.

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This game IS supposed to feel slow at the begining.

Also, the game is supposed to be SEMI-porcing. Basically once some maps are released for it you'll see what I mean (the mod plays perfectly on existing maps, I'm just making some specifically for this mod). There are going to be less metal spots, and farther apart but one spot will give you much more than normal. This will make it so in games players will have a bunch of mini-bases instead of one huge one spanning across over half the map. Walls and such will be in the game, two types: One that builds really fast and provides cover against ground units entering/against direct-fire units (think lasers). And another that's a lot taller, but costs a lot and a long time to build that can even protect you from long-range artillery.

Versions:
Public: Pre-Alpha3
Development: Pre-Alpha4
It's called pre-alpha because the alpha1 version will be the first release with all the units for the ops race. Alpha2 will be with all the units for both races (Covert and the Ops).

Ah yes, we're (apollo and I) working on some maps designed specifically for this mod aswell. None are actually started yet, just sketched.

Feel free to comment as you will :). Even say how horrible it is, just if you're going to do that, give me a reason. Please no "u suk" without any explanations.

[Peet]

Just rename it to the 'skimmer'. Problem solved.

That's a VERY high acceleration value btw. A good one for an interceptor is around 0.6
And maxwaterdepth should be 255 (correct me if I'm wrong), otherwise it won't be able to fly over water?

[Relinquished]

Okay, you found a typo . It's not supposed to be 1.1, it was supposed to be .33, don't ask how I missed that. And very funny about the skimmer thing -.-, but ALL planes are doing it. I don't want skimmer1, skimmer2, etc. xP

[MadRat]

He means call it like you see it. It slides there, so skimmer is strangely appropriate.

[Relinquished]

Yah I got that, I was just a bit slow. And I adjusted the maxwaterdepth and acceleration to 500 and 0.55 respectively, good enough values?

[Peet]

maxwaterdepth has to be 255 (this value is not the same as the values you see ingame, it's an 8-bit scale)

[Relinquished]

Oh okay, didn't know that. Thanks :)

[Relinquished]

[7uP]REVENGE got it working for me. Turns out that the planes were just moving too slow .

[REVENGE]

Yeah. For planes, it seems that if Max Velocity is lower than 2.0, the plane doesn't behave correctly. Anything greater than or equal to 2.0 should work, but it is preferrable to be at least 2.2 to keep the arcs the plane circles relatively sensible.

[Lippy]

Yeah. For planes, it seems that if Max Velocity is lower than 2.0, the plane doesn't behave correctly. Anything greater than or equal to 2.0 should work, but it is preferrable to be at least 2.2 to keep the arcs the plane circles relatively sensible.

Ye, aerofoils don't work at slow speeds....

[Relinquished]

But I wish they would take into account the size and weight of the planes...I mean, the one I was using was about 0.6x0.6 of a 1x1 footprint, with a mass of 1, and trying to move at a speed of 1.5.

[Thor]

You can also lower the affect of gravity on the plane with the tag myGravity, default value is 0.6. There are a bunch of other tags you may find useful on this page (scroll to the bottom)

[Saktoth]

and then dives at the ground and slides the rest of the way there.

I lols'd.

You could try working with the special flight dynamics to get it working. Those things are unpredictable and can be a real bugger, so be careful.

Info about them can be found here, here

Edit: Oh wait, Vtols? With gunship movement? This wont work then...

Really though, size is only relative to the map and the camera, right? So you can make them as large as you want...

[Relinquished]

Okay, but it's not gunship movement, and I want to make them small, not big

Edit: but it's working now, so no problems :). I'm having problems with the armor.txt file now though, for some reason it just doesn't work. Could someone move this to the correct forum if it's not in the right spot? thanks :).

[Relinquished]

Edit: Fixed, just deleting to keep space free.

[Saktoth]

Good start, a few crits:

It takes forever to build your first fac. Its just boring watching this happen. If you really dont want people spamming facs, try making them cost a prohibitive amount. If you want to preserve your current model, try starting out with a fac (And enough resources to build a constructor), instead of with a com.

The game will run very, very slowly with the way you have it set up. As far as i can tell its kind of like playing BA at 0.3 speed. o_O Most people prefer a faster paced game, so they can get it over in a half hour-hour. You seem to want to give the players the time to make descisions, but that doesnt mean it needs to be that damn slow, especially at the start. Maybe you should think more about limiting economic growth in order to give people less to micro, rather than making huge buildtimes and slow movements.

Slow movement speeds make long ranged weapons (In this case, your flaccid towers) very powerful. This will slow the game down even further, be careful not to let it be too porcy.

Other than that, well done! Might need to address if your design principles are for a game people will really want to play, but it looks good, clean, crisp for the most part.

Edit: You should really have started a new thread for your mod but oh well!

[Relinquished]

Good start, a few crits:

It takes forever to build your first fac. Its just boring watching this happen. If you really dont want people spamming facs, try making them cost a prohibitive amount. If you want to preserve your current model, try starting out with a fac (And enough resources to build a constructor), instead of with a com.

The game will run very, very slowly with the way you have it set up. As far as i can tell its kind of like playing BA at 0.3 speed. o_O Most people prefer a faster paced game, so they can get it over in a half hour-hour. You seem to want to give the players the time to make descisions, but that doesnt mean it needs to be that damn slow, especially at the start. Maybe you should think more about limiting economic growth in order to give people less to micro, rather than making huge buildtimes and slow movements.

Slow movement speeds make long ranged weapons (In this case, your flaccid towers) very powerful. This will slow the game down even further, be careful not to let it be too porcy.

I'll make a variant for that eventually then :). Because this mod is supposed to have a slow start and very long games. I like the idea of starting with the factory though. And just so you know, it's not going to be THAT slow, that's PA2 and there are some serious changes in PA3, like fo example, construction units, working planes, and AA towers.

Thanks for the feedback though, so far all I've gotten on the client is things like "dude, it's too slow" without and ideas or examples .

Other than that, well done! Might need to address if your design principles are for a game people will really want to play, but it looks good, clean, crisp for the most part.

Edit: You should really have started a new thread for your mod but oh well!

The mod was actually being designed originally just for my bro and I, but we figured why not let everyone else try it? And I could start a new thread if I knew how to lock/delete/close/etc. this one, so if someone's wiling to do that for me/tell me how it'd be appreciated :).

Edit: Just to clarify, PA = Pre-Alpha.

[smoth]

You can also lower the affect of gravity on the plane with the tag myGravity, default value is 0.6. There are a bunch of other tags you may find useful on this page (scroll to the bottom)

but, in this case they crash REALLY slow.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

rename the "Flaccid Lightning Tower"

also, this isnt a critisism just a handy point, you should try and make mods so they play perfectly on existing maps, otherwise things never take off and people dont understand. maybe you should make metal extractors as per other mods. will there be infantry?

[Relinquished]

rename the "Flaccid Lightning Tower"

Why? Flaccid means weak...I looked in 3 different places

also, this isnt a critisism just a handy point, you should try and make mods so they play perfectly on existing maps, otherwise things never take off and people dont understand. maybe you should make metal extractors as per other mods. will there be infantry?

It does play perfectly on existing maps, just I'm also making maps specifically designed for the mod. They won't necessarily be better, just they'll give the mod the feel that it's supposed to have.

"Infantry" yes, as in units that will fill that role, but not infantry per-se. It's kinda hard to explain, basically for the ops the infantry is going to be more hoverish like the commander. The covert is going to use smaller/weaker tanks and mechs. I think at least, the covert is still being designed.