Reviving the request list

[Pxtl]

Since everybody else is throwing out ideas, I'll add my requests:

Some good FFA gametypes. Normal TA FFA is unplayable - the player who porcs best wins while the others beat each other up, then porc player sweeps in and wins. Attacking becomes a loser's game.

King of the crater would be a good solution. That could be expanded to support the idea of multiple craters.

A similar approach is one where there N goal-locations to control (say, 15) and controlling some smaller n (say, 5) is the victory condition of the game. So if a player starts winning (like they have 3 or 4 control locations) then the other players quickly gang up to oust him lest they lose the game.

Alternately, you could change "King of the Crater" such that the points are only counted if your Commander is currently in the crater. This would mean that scoring points is risky. That could work.

Both "king of the crater" and "control" would encourage a deathmatch-style respawning commander, so there's no "sit out and wait" problem when you die. Of course, when you respawn you only have your commander - no army - so it would be tricky to balance it right.

You could do the same thing for teamplay - each team has one "gate" and the objective is to get a commander from your team to the enemy gate to score a point. Commanders respawn, and the gate is immortal.

The only problem with respawning commanders is that commanders may be used as commandos. They'd have to be rebalanced to make that less useful, but still maintaining anti-rush defense. Maybe each player spawns with some heavy defense turrets around the commander's spawn point to prevent rushing? Then you could weaken the d-gun and death-explosion, discouraging commando commanders.

Or, how abou one that requires no special maps - a Hunt mode? That is "Kill the King". The first player to kill a Commander (unless by self-destruct) becomes King. At that point, he starts collecting one point per second, and 100 points for killing an enemy Commander. When he's killed, another player becomes King. If the king's commander is killed by it's own team (self-destruct or otherwise) then he loses 100 points and respawns - and a lone commander without his army with every player gunning for him will die really quickly.

First player with 1000 points wins.

Or, if you want a shorter game, start the counting with the first player who destroys any enemy unit (not just an enemy commander).

Tons of games with special goals could be figured out to make FFA more playable - some of them might even allow for respawning commanders.

Oh, and here's an odd idea - how about units and buildings that you can build other units and buildings on top of? Like towers, flying platforms, barges, etc?

[sparkyhodgo]

Not bad. I like the king of the crater idea. Overall, your ideas sound like applications of FPS game modes to an RTS. Essentially, you're saying:

King of the Hill
King of the Crater
Frag the Monkey

Sounds good! I wonder if we could get something like the TA mutator so that we could temorarily change unit stats for certain modes, such as turning off the commander blast for "frag the monkey."

How about it SY? Can we get game modes and a mutator?

[Pxtl]

Not bad. I like the king of the crater idea. Overall, your ideas sound like applications of FPS game modes to an RTS. Essentially, you're saying:

King of the Hill
King of the Crater
Frag the Monkey

Sounds good! I wonder if we could get something like the TA mutator so that we could temorarily change unit stats for certain modes, such as turning off the commander blast for "frag the monkey."

How about it SY? Can we get game modes and a mutator?

Keep in mind that "control" would be distinctly different from "King of the Hill". The idea in Control is that the first player to grab the winning number of control points wins instantly. So the game becomes less about just dominating the "Crater" than keeping any one player from taking too many points, while taking as many as you can yourself. This gameplay worked very well in a board game called Cosmic Encounter.

[tanelorn]

I would say a great addition would be to allow us to save our unit restrictions. Then people could post their favorite restrictions on FileUniverse. Also some of the best restriction settings could come with Spring by default.

So if you wanted to play a game without advanced units, or without porcing weapons like nukes and berthas, etc, the host could just select a restriction set in the restrictions menu. Wala! Instant non-porcin FFA.

[sparkyhodgo]

With a new version released today, I thought it was time to update the request list (see page 1).

Tell me what the progress is on each of the list's items, and I'll update it.

Tell me what you want added to the list, and I'll update it, too!

PS: obligatory plug for cornerless "donut world" maps.

[sparkyhodgo]

What the status on the following graphical features, which [used to] be worked on? I've gone through the art forum but they're still unclear, at least officially. (Note: I would answer this myself, but my graphics card cannot run Spring's advanced features)

*high-res models
*new GUI with buttons
*dynamic lighting

[Maelstrom]

The New GUI has an active thread running in the Development forum.