Customizable commanders: implemented

[Licho]

We would like to announce new feature of Zero-K - customizable commanders.

Each game of Zero-K you play now shows on user's page .. you can also easilly replay demo of it:
http://zero-k.info/Battles.mvc/Detail/2191

Players are awarded XP from battles. XP depends on victory/defeat, probability of victory (unlikely win = more XP), game size (smaller = more XP), bots and other factors.

XP is used to level up and each level up you can spend your XP to buy various components.

Chassis, modules and weapons for your commanders


Using purchased components, you can customize up to 4 different commander setups.

This is example of one of mine:


At the start of game, you pick which of your commanders you want to use that game.
Each commander starts game at level 1 morph and can gradually morph up to level 4, gaining HP, strength and activating more and more modules.

If you can model, please help us making proper awesome commander models

Ideally commanders should become more and more awesome as they morph and display various modules graphically.

To try this, simply play few zero-k games and then login to http://zero-k.info/ to unlock stuff and customize commanders.

[Licho]

Notes:
* you can turn system off using modoption disableunlocks
* unlocks only work on springie-type autohosts

Credits:
* game modification,gadgets: KingRaptor
* server,web and springie: Licho
* icons: luckywaldo7
* design and balancing: KingRaptor, GoogleFrog, Saktoth

[Beherith]

Very, very cool!

[Pxtl]

Notes:
* you can turn system off using modoption disableunlocks
* unlocks only work on springie-type autohosts

Credits:
* game modification,gadgets: KingRaptor
* server,web and springie: Licho
* icons: luckywaldo7
* design and balancing: KingRaptor, GoogleFrog, Saktoth

What commander do players use with disableunlocks?

Also, do I have to buy a comm first before buying comm parts, or is the stock commander able to get upgraded?

[Licho]

People with no commander yet automatically use stirke commander with beam laser - but with no ability to morph.

You do need some chassis purchased before you can start customizing it.

[Petah]

Cool, now it just needs a decent GUI

[Pxtl]

Wait, if you start at Morph 1, how do you pay for the metal cost of the upgrades for Morph 1? Deducted from starting metal?

[Aether_0001]

Where do I get CA. I really really really want it now.

[SinbadEV]

I would suggest an "Arcade" mode where people get a choice of 4 basic commanders presets for the purpose of tournaments. In general however this is made of win and awesome and un-fail.

[Licho]

Pxtl, yes morph 1 cost is deducted from starting metal.

SinbadEV - it can be balanced balanced because you have to pay for morphs with ingame metal. For tournament mode there is disableunlocks=1 which gives all people identical backup commander.
I would also like it to give you those 4 commanders from the earlier version.

[knorke]

Where do I get CA. I really really really want it now.

by clicking any of the spam messages in #main that link to http://zero-k.info/

So how does it work, components are units that get attached or pieces that hide/show or something else?

[hoijui]

can other users see in-game what special abilities the enemy commander has (as in, written in some string, or only visible)? can they see what the enemy com would look like if he would morph? can you see other peoples stuff on the website?

nice stuff!

[Licho]

Atm you can only see what chassis and level it is and of course you see effects of its changed weapons/systems

We would like to visually indicate different upgrades in the future directly on model.

It should be easy to add info about modules (including future morphs) to tooltips.

For now its visible on the website, you can go to user's page and hover his commander setups to see what he has..

[Google_Frog]

You can check a few modules and all weapons by space clicking on the enemy commander.

[Forboding Angel]

Neato features, but commander choosing needs some more loving. It looks hueg and disorganized atm.

[smoth]

Neato features, but commander choosing needs some more loving. It looks hueg and disorganized atm.

Give some suggestions, maybe a drawing or something. Think about how you would feel if you came out with something like this and you a critique like this.

[Pxtl]

I don't quite get why you have the 4 commander base chassis when the commander is customized anyways. Wouldn't it make more sense to have 1 base chassis and a minimum-upgrade-amount for L1 so you can tweak it out to get any of the 4 starting setups and variations thereof?

[luckywaldo7]

Google Frog's idea for the chassis was based on movetype. So you could have a hover chassis, all-terrain chassis, amph chassis, and possibly flying and stationary.

This would make the most sense because movetype is an ability that wouldn't really work putting into modules, but it would mean a lot of new models. And Zero-K doesn't really have any active modelers at the moment.

[Echo419]

For com construction perhaps a mechlab style feature would work? A drop down menu for each tier/morph and then you jsut drag n drop your weapons into the slots.

[Forboding Angel]

Neato features, but commander choosing needs some more loving. It looks hueg and disorganized atm.

Give some suggestions, maybe a drawing or something. Think about how you would feel if you came out with something like this and you a critique like this.

Load up the game. The moment it starts you have this giant screen spanning commander chooser thing in your way. It was royally annoying, not to mention that the commander model used in some of them looks fairly bad. I can forgive the less than awesome looking model (maybe it was just a crappy screengrab *shrug*), but the giant commander chooser thing was very irritating.