[R] Modern-War Style Mod

On August 30 2014 08:50 ninazerg wrote:
This blog is 4 serious, okay?

So I've been playing RTS games for a long-ass time now, starting with WarCraft II, then Command and Conquer, then Total Annihilation, then StarCraft, and I've also played a bunch of strategy-based games that I can't even remember all the names of. When SupCom came out, I immediately ran to the store and bought it, and wasn't able to play it until SEVEN YEARS LATER because my computer sux'd but now I have a good computer that can run that shit. Now the GPG server is no longer supported because GPG doesn't exist, and now there's an expansion I'd have to buy, and barely anyone plays now, so that's a lot of blah.

The thing that got me thinking about "What if I made my own gaem" started when a bunch of the people from Cavedog (Who developed TA) and Gas-Powered Games started working on Planetary Annihilation. When I heard there was gonna be another game like TA and SupCom, of course I was so excited that I squealed with joy. However, beyond the novelty factor of the planet-shaped battlefield and crashing an asteroid into it, the game seems kind of bland. This kind of thing has to do with games having an awesome-super-weapon-oriented play which seems to be the norm in SupCom games. Every match I've played in multiplayer for SupCom has literally just been RUSH TO EXPERIMENTALS, WIN. This has a lot to do with anti-rush sorts of mechanics built into the game, which, apparently, was a problem in TA with people rushing to flashes - BUT - it makes me think of the 'zerg rush' of StarCraft; just scout and build a fucking bunker, or in this case, build a fucking laser tower.

Point being, nobody wants to get 'rushed', but would rather have time to get huge awesome weapons to make huge explosions and be like "oooooooh". And that's fine. Except you do that maybe a couple dozen times over and it loses its fun-factor.

Of course, StarCraft has the infamous "Nuclear launch detected", which would throw you into a panic and then blow up all your stuff, that is, until you got better at the game and could just find the ghost and kill it instantly. Then the nuclear missile became more of a novelty item because it costs an arm and a leg to actually get to, and once you do get it, it doesn't do what you'd expect a nuclear missile to do (which is blow up everything) and takes fucking forever to go from lasing the target to actually falling down.

FUN FACT: The SC nuclear missile is lased with a ghost and doesn't blow up much area because it's a "tactical" nuke, but for some reason, it launches out of a silo and flies up into space, which is more of a strategic missile thing. Lawl.

So, once you get past the "GET NUKES", "GET BATTLECRUISERS", "GET CARRIERS" phase of playing RTS, you start thinking of how you can be sneaky and win games with your amazing level of wit and sneakiness, because you played a game online and saw someone build cannons in his opponent's base and you were like "That's funny, I'm gonna do that!" and then you start building a pylon in your brother's base on LAN connection and can barely contain your giggling when you start the first cannon. Your heart starts pounding and you're like "Jesus, I hope he doesn't see this because if this cannon does not build, I am screwed." and I think that's where games start to get truly 'fun', when possibilities start opening up that get you excited for the next game. And the next game, and the next game and so on!

But about variety in games: it goes both ways. A lot of variety isn't necessarily good variety. For example, in TA, there are so many fucking different units, all of which either perform essentially the same function, being tanky hard-hitting units that you mass a ton of, or being useless because they aren't tanky, hard-hitting units.


so uh yeah


My game kind of works like this: instead of gathering resources, you have a "drop point" where a supply helicopter drops off an equipment box or brings in personnel. You get to pick which supplies are brought in every time the drop point timer allows for it. You can also automate the drop point and set it to only bring tanks. You can also transport in materials to build another drop point or upgrade the drop point so that the supply helicopter doesn't take so fucking long to bring more supplies.

This game mechanic is really easy to manage, because the supply helicopter will continue to bring you more and more shit as long as the drop point is alive. If your enemy shoots down the supply helicopter, you have to wait for the next one, but you'll still have the drop point.

I have a few ideas for the 'base', but they're quite simple: Structures get divided into only two categories, Construction and Battlefield.

Battlefield refers to bunkers, walls, towers, ammo dumps, medical bays, repair shops

Construction refers to vehicle assembly, helicopter assembly, missile assembly, and an upgrade shop.

You start each game with a construction vehicle and a drop point. The supply helicopter immediately drops off a box of building materials, and then you have the option to set the supply helicopter to either bring infantry or to bring more building materials. The building materials can be used for anything. As soon as you tell the construction vehicle to build something, it will grab the building materials and start building stuff.

This brings us to the 'queue', which I'll discuss briefly: As soon as you give an order to build, that unit/building gets first priority in the queue at the drop point. For example, let's say you have a vehicle assembly and two construction vehicles.

1st order: Construction vehicle ordered to build a bunker.
2nd order: Vehicle Assembly ordered to build a tank
3rd order: Second construction vehicle ordered to build an ammo dump

Then the supply helicopter will bring materials in that order, and you can view the queue via hotkey or clicking on the drop point at any time. If there is a second drop point and so on, the second drop point will take the second order, and then whichever one gets to the third order first will bring the supplies. If they both receive orders simultaneously, then the game will crash a random one will be picked to bring the supplies by the game's AI.

If you just leave your drop points on "bring supplies" mode forever, you will not get infinite supplies. The helicopter will drop off one equipment box and will not ever come back until you use it, so don't let your macro be slipping.

Battlefield buildings:

Ammo Dump - Your units will run out of ammo in this game. After they run out of bullets, they'll run to the nearest ammo dump to get more of whatever they need and then return to the battle. So if your ammo dumps are far away from the fight, and your opponent's ammo dump is close, then your people will have to retreat all the way across the map to get ammo.

Medical Bay - This is basically your 'medic', but it's a building. When you send your infantry here, they recover HP. Yay.

Vehicle Repair Shop - Same as the medical bay, but for repairing anything that is vehicle-based, including construction vehicles.

Air Repair Shop - A special place for attack helicopters to go when they are hurting inside.

Tower - Basically an elevation that gives infantry in the tower a slightly further field of vision and +1 range so they will get the first shot against infantry on foot.

Bunker - A very tough structure that absorbs a ton of punishment. Infantry and vehicles can hide out inside of a bunker, but unlike the StarCraft bunker, they cannot all shoot out of the bunker, sorry Only one infantry unit can fire out from the bunker at a time with a heavy machine gun, which does light damage to armor and mild damage to infantry. The bunker is fully resistant against cruise missiles.

Drop Point - The place where your supply helicopters come to bring you equipment. These can only be destroyed by infantry.

Upgrade Shop - A place to upgrade your shit.

Construction buildings:

Vehicle Assembly - The supply helicopter will drop off equipment, and then a construction vehicle will automatically carry the equipment to this place where it is assembled into a vehicle. The types of vehicles you can build vary depending on which faction you play as.

Helicopter Assembly - The same as a vehicle assembly, where you build helicopters of various types.

Missile Assembly - The missile assembly builds missile launcher vehicles, which are nearly the same for each faction. There is a cruise missile launcher, nuclear missile launcher, SAM missile launcher. The actual missiles are also assembled here and this building acts as the ammo dump for missile launchers, although unlike ammo dumps, each missile requires equipment from the drop points to be built.


Factions

The game takes place after some kind of World War 3 nuclear holocaust thing happens, which destroys almost every major city in the world, along with nearly every airbase, missile silo and radar site. Additionally, most of the aircraft have already engaged in a huge suicidal aerial battle where nearly every air force is left crippled. Despite most of each nation's military and infrastructure being destroyed, the commanders decide to just continue fighting each other "until the politicians tell us the war's over", which, of course, can't happen because they're all dead. A bit of dark humor there, but that's how it goes in this world: the tiny remains of the military forces just continue to do battle because they're just following orders and are officially in a state of war until further notice. There are three playable factions.

AMERICA: + Show Spoiler [American forces] +

RUSSIA: + Show Spoiler [Russian forces] +

CHINA: + Show Spoiler [Chinese forces] +

Unit explanations:

Infantry: These are your little guys who run around and shoot guns and rockets. The transport helicopter will continuously bring you reinforcements of infantry in fours, along with one sniper for a total of five troops. They can enter transport vehicles and helicopters (very easily, like StarCraft dropships) and are very multi-purpose in nature.

Transport Vehicle: Basically a ground-based way of transporting infantry. Vehicles move faster than infantry, and also have more protection against incoming fire. Transport vehicles can also fight using their cannon, but are only good against small numbers of infantry.

AAA: A cheap way to deal with attack helicopters and to snipe transport helicopters. In a one-on-one fight, an AAA gun can't deal with an attack helicopter, but will most likely severely damage the enemy chopper. AAA guns cannot deal damage to tanks and infantry, and are easy targets for these forces.

Tank: Pretty much everyone's favorite thing ever, of course. Tanks are good at blowing up pretty much everything ground-based, but don't have a huge AOE attack, so they aren't overpowered against infantry, although one shot can kill a few soldiers that are all clumped together.

Artillery: Sort of like a tank, but without the armor or mobility. The benefit of artillery is that it out-ranges armor, and while it has a lower damage output, the AOE area is higher.

Transport Helicopter: Faster than a transport vehicle, but not as well-protected. Helicopters will get ripped apart by AAA or SAM missiles if they fly into danger. Unlike transport vehicles, which can only carry infantry, a transport helicopter can also pick up one vehicle.

Attack Helicopter: Higher DPS than a tank, but much less armor. The main advantage to having air units is their mobility, so despite their low health, they have the ability to escape from danger quickly.

SAM: A slow-firing missile system that blows shit out of the air with one hit. The only way for an air unit to avoid dying is to fly out of range of the SAM radar before getting hit by the missile. It's pretty sick. SAMs can be used to shoot down incoming cruise missiles as well.

Cruise missile: The most powerful anti-ground unit, which also blows up single ground targets with one hit, but constructs missiles incredibly slowly. The cruise missile launcher can fire onto any part of the map, regardless of whether there is something there or not, but you must maintain vision to hit a moving ground unit, because if the unit disappears into the fog of war, the missile will just hit the ground.

Nuclear missile: The nuclear missile will blow up everything on the entire fucking map except for drop points and bunkers. Once the missile has been launched, you will have to hide as much stuff in your bunkers as possible, or else risk losing it all. You will lose all your assemblies, upgrades shops, towers, wall fortifications, ammo dumps, and so on. Is this overpowered? Abso-fucking-lutely, so if you don't have a SAM launcher to intercept the nuclear missile, then you might have to start over from scratch... well... you'll still have all your drop points, so if you have like 20 drop points, you'll be able to regenerate super-quickly.



Balance

Obviously, balance is a big issue for people who play a game. They want to feel like they got the absolute most fair game possible. However, this feeling isn't always in-synch with reality, which is why I would balance it like this:

All drop points reload at the same speed for all factions.
Russia would have the fewest infantry dropped off, but the best.
China would have the most infantry dropped off, but the worst.
America would be the "middle ground" faction.
The same rules would generally apply to each factions other stuff as well.

The Russian helicopters would be the slowest, but most well-armed
The American helicopters would be the fastest, but least heavily-armed
The Chinese helicopters would be middle ground

The Russian tank has a high damage output but less armor
The American tank has a lower damage output but more armor
The Chinese tank is cheaper than either factions tanks, but generally worse

The Chinese artillery is the most mobile, but does less damage
The Russian artillery hits the hardest, but is slow
The American artillery has the longest range

So far, you may be thinking "So why doesn't everyone just pick Russia and 1a2a3a to victory?" and it's because of cost, which is usually just measured in time. For example, a "cheaper" unit will take less time to finish assembling or to be transported in. If it turns out that Russia is imbalanced, the game can be patched accordingly. It wouldn't take 50 patches, though, and I wouldn't go "SOON" and then never do anything.


Spells

You can't have a game without spells. Well, sorta. There are some things that have to be done manually, such as sending hurt infantry to a medical bay or sending helicopters to go repair, loading and unloading transports, converting equipment into units and buildings, sending construction vehicles to build stuff, and so on, but there also are some things I want done manually, like telling your artillery and cruise missiles where to fire. The artillery shells are basically your "psi storms" against mass infantry clumps, and cruise missiles are your way of being obnoxious and raining death from the skies.

The terrain will be utilizable, with high ground having an advantage in sight and accuracy, and lots of places to hide stuff. This is where the "hold fire" command will come into play - the same idea as stop lurkers - and I actually got the idea from that tall grass that you can hide in playing LoL. If you put troops into, say, tall grass and tell them to hold fire, they'll remain hidden, and when some poor unsuspecting helicopter flies over, they'll all pop up and start firing at it.

Your secondary infantry units, which are specialists and snipers, will also be able to sabotage buildings and tanks, and planting a bomb that counts down and then blows them up. For example, if you order a sniper to sabotage a tank, she will run up to the tank and plant a bomb on it. Even if she dies, the bomb will still be strapped to the tank and 10 seconds later, it will explode. Snipers can also be upgraded to carry rocket launchers to fire at vehicles and helicopters.

All infantry units will be able to hold fire, take cover, destroy drop points, and fire rockets. Each infantry will get one shoulder-mounted rocket if they are upgraded, and this can be used against vehicles, helicopters and infantry. Taking cover will increase an opposing unit's miss-chance when firing at infantry, and each hit will do slightly less damage. When given the command, infantry will dart to the nearest cover spot, and if none are in the immediate vicinity, they will simply drop down onto their bellies and crawl forward while shooting. You can create artificial cover by building walls with your construction vehicles.


Corpses

There definitely need to be corpses. This is something I absolutely would insist on having in the game. Even if someone came along and completely ruined everything else, this needs to stay in: if a tank blows up, there is a burning tank corpse left behind. If a helicopter crashes, there is a burning helicopter corpse left behind. You can have your living units take cover behind destroyed ones, which become obstacles that must be climbed over or cleared out.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, play TA or SupCom sometime, and you'll know what I'm talking about.

The same will go for infantry, which will probably make the game unsuitable for kids to play but: if an infantry man or woman gets killed, their body just lays there. Infantry versus infantry battles will simply leave bodies laying around, but any kind of explosive-based death leaves them as charred black bodies. If you think that's sadistic, wait until you read the next section. But that's war: it's awful and people die.


Alterable environment

This is something that just needs to happen in pretty much any modern game, but it's a complex task to make the whole environment alterable in a realistic manner. And I'm not suggesting that we create a game where we can blow up a whole mountain and chunks of it go flying everywhere. Just I hate it in games when bullet-holes disappear or blast craters vanish because there are too many on the map. I say if something is going to burn, it's going to burn and it's not going to get back to normal in 30 seconds.

The game will have neutral units/buildings, but there will be a lot of civilian buildings and people around, and while your troops will generally ignore them, you can kill everything. If there is a bridge, you can blow up the bridge. If there is a church, you can blow up the church. You can wreck the roads so they become more difficult to move through for vehicles. You can set trees and houses on fire. And yes, you can kill civilians for no fucking reason. And their livestock.

Since soldiers and tanks can interact with the environment, you will have the ability to hide troops virtually anywhere where there are trees, buildings and so on.

I would definitely want the following items to be put into the game:

Male Civilian (at least 3 types)
Female Civilian (at least 3 types)
Dog
Cattle
Bear
Parked Car (at least 6 colors, red, blue, black, white, grey, yellow)
Parked Bus
Community Church
Cathedral Church
Civilian Residential Structure (at least 5 types)
Long Bridge
Short Bridge
School
Commercial Store (5 types)
Gas station
Factory (5 types)
Chemical Plant
Power Plant
High-rise structure (5-6 kinds)
Radio Tower
Water Tower

And so on, along with paved roads, dirt roads, fences and sidewalks. There will be various map types, as well, including:

Green Forest(Basically, "Jungle Terrain")
Winter Wonderland
Urban Area
Desert
Mountains
Farmland

Fires

Gamers love when stuff explodes. Don't ask me why. But I don't want any of the explosion graphics to be half-assed. I want the game to fun to just look at, even if you're not playing.

Interface

I don't want the interface to be cluttered with a bunch of shit, but there needs to be a mini-map, a unit-selection panel, which will counter out what you have selected, like so:

392 Voyska
49 Metkiy Strelok
56 T-80 Tankovyy
34 2S19 Msta

And a production toggle, which will set what is to be delivered at each drop point. By default, the drop point will be set to 'infantry', but if you click it, it will switch to 'equipment'. If you lost every construction vehicle, you can click on an equipment box and order it to morph into a construction vehicle. Construction vehicles will build all of the buildings, and transport equipment boxes to assembly plants. If there is an assembly plant that needs equipment, the nearest not-active (meaning not building a structure or given orders) construction vehicle will deliver the equipment to the assembly plant.



So we got ourselves a pretty clean interface. Hitting a hotkey or clicking the tab in the bottom right would show the production toggles.

tech tree
The tech tree is fairly simple. A construction vehicle is the prerequisite for:

Upgrade Shop + Vehicle Assembly | Upgrades available upon completion: 'construct bunker', 'construct vehicle repair shop', upgrade ammo dump, +1 range for artillery available for upgrade,
Helicopter Assembly | Upgrades: rockets for infantry, radar range for AAA, 'construct helicopter repair station', upgrade medical bay, upgrade vehicle repair shop
Missile Assembly | Upgrades: radar range for SAMs, 'construct nuclear missile launcher', upgrade helicopter repair station

Towers, walls, construction vehicles, medical bays and ammo dumps are always available for construction. Each tier 1 upgrade costs 1 equipment box. Each tier 2 upgrade/structure costs 2 equipment boxes. Each tier 3 upgrade costs 4 equipment boxes. Constructing a new drop site costs 8 equipment boxes.

So yeah, that's my rough draft of my idea for now.

I wanna know what YOU think! Not "good idea but this will probably never get made unless you got money", but about the game concept, because this game has a lot less emphasis on macro than StarCraft and a lot more emphasis on using small tactics and microing.