Spring RTS Engine

I am actually quite interested in this game. Since I am an old fun of GCI and II, Ill try to give more details about the system of GCI (since the second version was more popular-oriented and the gameplay was worse)


The system was very similar to yours here. You are not given credits, but you are given squads for a mission (for multiplayer you have some equivalent to credits if I recall correctly)

For example :
Given 1 dropship, which can fit say 3 squads, and you can choose from
2 marine squads (good against marines)
2 rocket marine squads (they are smalller and are oriented against vehicles and not troops)
1 light tank squad (good against marines)

You can only deploy the dropship once, so you do not have to guard the deployment area, which means that there is no "camp" involved and once the dropship is away, the units you have is the only thing you control.


The units included tanks, marines, light vehicles, airplanes, with a lot of different special abilities, starting from just a simple charge for the marines, and up to a deployable auto-repair station for the heavier tanks, and even nuclear shells for artillery and bombs for bombers.

The multiplayer was surprisingly well balanced, besides a few miscounts (such as common technique was to get bombers with afterburners and nuclear bombs, basically wiping out the opponent's spawn on small maps).

The main idea was exactly the same as yours, its a tactical game, you control your squad, you have to wipe out the enemy. You use grass and plants and buildings to take cover, and even portable cloaking fields on several units, which further reduce effective LOS of the enemy.

The engine used was very similar to spring, I dont even actually recall units to be able to modify the terrain. The gameplay was generally very interesting both for single player and for multiplayer.

And as I said, I recall that the game was released free to public So googlesearch might dig something up. If you will be interested, give me a shout, Ill try to find it.

was thinking of something like this for awhile now but never got anything working together.
would you consider a side mod with vehicles and equipment for larger maps. and make the vehicles only usable when a squad member jumps in to drive?

Well the new version doesn't seem to improve anything much...Soldiers still die in a second and players still search for each other more than actually doing battle.
The different types of soldiers are basically unrecognizable.

The map is bugged...at least for me.

Think you should increase HP many folds increase unit speed give some vague radar signals about enemy whereabouts maybe even think about tripling unit sizes(yeah...) so they are easy to recognize and easy to individually micro.
I mean...have you actually played it????

i like the idea, but immo its really lame, so how about make it like jagged alliance (with movement points and stuff) and additional stuff (night vision, silencer,...)

I don't understand why not look at the best available examples of squad based strategy like say warcraft 3 or squad based tactical games...so many examples which are vgood..
After implementing all their good stuff in mind or in the game itself you can improve upon them and extand their good qualities..

for longer los, maybe add binos/ telescoped lenses, that immobilizes the unit but gives it a longer range for spotting and reconnaissance of the area

i like the idea, but immo its really lame, so how about make it like jagged alliance (with movement points and stuff) and additional stuff (night vision, silencer,...)

Let's just say that what you're asking for is well outside the scope, and leave it at that. A turn-based game like JA is a very different animal from this, and while it's more than technically possible to write a TBS game in Spring, I have zero interest in doing so.

I don't understand why not look at the best available examples of squad based strategy like say warcraft 3 or squad based tactical games...so many examples which are vgood..
After implementing all their good stuff in mind or in the game itself you can improve upon them and extand their good qualities..

Meh... I'd tell you that it's impossible, but I'd be lying.

So if you'd like to extend the game design... here's the source of the ruleset, PD. It's what makes the game design work, pretty much- the rest of it's "merely" user interface and content.

Knock yourself out. No reason you can't write a mod for Merc Squad, though, using this and modifying the stats of the troopers or their weapons to suit your ideas, add new special powers, etc., etc., etc., or just start a new game from scratch, using the ruleset as a starting-place.