Melee combat in Spring
Posted: 20 May 2005, 08:38
Well, since time immemorial RTS's have struggled to recreate good hand-to-hand combat. Projectile weaponry is much easier to simulate on a computer.
Thus far, the only games to do it vaguely succesfully is the Total War series. I think this is more or less because it does away with the idea of "hitpoints" (I know it doesn't, but it is far less prevalent). Units don't stand there belting each other with swords until the other falls down, as in the Warcraft series (or practically any other melee RTS for that matter).
I started this thread do discuss different ways for Spring to be able to simulate melee combat, and how to go about doing this.
I know this is relevant, because there have been numerous attempts to get hand to hand combat in OTA, from medieval mods, to american revolution mods (:oops:) to Jedi lightsabers. I'd love to see some succesful hand-to-hand mods from Spring.
In reality, hand to hand combat seems to be made up of two chances, which are not interrelated:
That is, the chance that you score a hit, and the chance that you block the enemy.
Of course, it would be significantly more complicated then that, ranging from being attacked in the back, to having shields, to dodging blades, and so on. You can go further and have all sorts of complicated factors from morale to fatigue.
The most important part of it all is that it has a level of randomness on the small scale, so that a light infantryman actually has a chance of cutting down a horseman (just as a hypothetical example), but on the large scale, a squad of light infantry should succumb to a squad of cavalry.
It is all very complicated, but I think it can be simulated quite well in Spring. And there are so many mods that would be awesome to do in Spring with melee combat...
(While I'm getting excited: Chinese warfare, Japanese Warfare, Ancient civilisation warfare (greeks, romans, egyptians, etc), Lord of the Rings (or other fantasy settings), medieval warfare, renaissance warfare (with muskets and bayonet combat, Star Wars Jedi combat (using something akin to SJ's plasma reflection script for Jedis to redirect laser shots), etc)
How do you think is the best way to tackle Melee combat in Spring?
Remember, it is a fine line which is difficult to approach. Kingdoms, for example, failed rather miserably in melee combat...
Thus far, the only games to do it vaguely succesfully is the Total War series. I think this is more or less because it does away with the idea of "hitpoints" (I know it doesn't, but it is far less prevalent). Units don't stand there belting each other with swords until the other falls down, as in the Warcraft series (or practically any other melee RTS for that matter).
I started this thread do discuss different ways for Spring to be able to simulate melee combat, and how to go about doing this.
I know this is relevant, because there have been numerous attempts to get hand to hand combat in OTA, from medieval mods, to american revolution mods (:oops:) to Jedi lightsabers. I'd love to see some succesful hand-to-hand mods from Spring.
In reality, hand to hand combat seems to be made up of two chances, which are not interrelated:
That is, the chance that you score a hit, and the chance that you block the enemy.
Of course, it would be significantly more complicated then that, ranging from being attacked in the back, to having shields, to dodging blades, and so on. You can go further and have all sorts of complicated factors from morale to fatigue.
The most important part of it all is that it has a level of randomness on the small scale, so that a light infantryman actually has a chance of cutting down a horseman (just as a hypothetical example), but on the large scale, a squad of light infantry should succumb to a squad of cavalry.
It is all very complicated, but I think it can be simulated quite well in Spring. And there are so many mods that would be awesome to do in Spring with melee combat...
(While I'm getting excited: Chinese warfare, Japanese Warfare, Ancient civilisation warfare (greeks, romans, egyptians, etc), Lord of the Rings (or other fantasy settings), medieval warfare, renaissance warfare (with muskets and bayonet combat, Star Wars Jedi combat (using something akin to SJ's plasma reflection script for Jedis to redirect laser shots), etc)
How do you think is the best way to tackle Melee combat in Spring?
Remember, it is a fine line which is difficult to approach. Kingdoms, for example, failed rather miserably in melee combat...