Monday, November 28, 2011

Concept: Will code for food

I'm beginning to see why people build tower defence games. Setting up 1 side to move towards another is relatively easy. Implimenting code OOP so that it can be reused for the opposing side tricker.

Basing the mechanics of real life weapons stats the weapons range is too far. Currenly I'm thinking of cutting drones (infantry) out, or cutting units off above destroyer.

Droners - Maybe Unit (infantry)
5.62- 7.62mm (1.8K range), grenades, rpg
Corvette - Smallest unit (akin to humvee)
12mm (2.5K range), Grenades, RPG
Frigate - Medium unit (akin to APC)
25mm (3-7K range), 12mm, TOW
Destroyer - Heavy unit (akin to Tank)
120mm (4-8K range), 2x 12mm,
Cruiser - Capital ship (akin to Frigate)
Long Range Missiles (120K range), 155mm (30k range), 12mm
Battleship - Capital ship (akin to destroyer)
Cruise Missiles (2.5 M range), 300mm, 120mm

In the set up of having each ship have a distinct feel, anything above Destroyer is massively over powered. Its difficult to see how I can rescale to include Drones, without making destroyers seem like mobile artillery. I would have to include some level of stealth sneekiness to smaller units to account for thier size so they stand a chance. Saying that in games like flashpoint anything beyond 1K range is Artillery style combat.

Cover wise, I can't be bothered adding another level of code for environmentals. Units will have shields where they can effectively build thier own cover. Under fire thier shields will degrade and can be mitigated by artillery weapons.

With the keyboard setup, the idea at least is that the game can be more point and click. You can maybe blind fire artillery, focus fire on units.

I kind of want units to have good AI, but that the they are restricted by terms of cost. IE, a unit unless ordered to, will fire the most economical weapon. Although my agressive/defensive setup idea may ease the micro.

That said the timer intercept idea, looks good. Obivious issues, like, if a good and bad unit are spawned at the same time, the game may miss it, if I code the AI too well it may get intercepts up the wazzu. Have to set up a system which tracks if something changes, who immediately is effected it should be doable. Depending how wide I make the map, there could be multiple front lines, so I will keep to 3 lanes.

Trash can - lol I started this idea in 2008
Time based, Isometric game structure - I may return to this but it feels less fluid.
Large Scale map - I'm going to limit to one campaign map.
Save states - I may have to do this or may influence me toning the scope down so I don't have to.
Scoreboard - funny how some say this has to be done, can't remember many that have
Drones - I think corvettes can replace them easily and remove 1 layer of weapons. I can just make a light corvette unit which is akin to infantry feel.
Captial Ships - I'll probably use these more as plot devices than playable units.

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