WoT Review

Having playing World of tanks for a bit. I think its a nice solid game and look forward to world of planes.

I think the main let down is the quality of players.  Every so often in a match and one side noob rushes the other down 1 flank to great effect. However what tends to happen is that flank stalls and the other flank is completely open. Yet pritty much every match it happens.

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.

Concept: Fleet Commander I (V0.1.3)

After making progress I took some down time to play around with a splash / campaign map. Players will navigate this Map (and a simular Galaxy Map maybe) to move around. The scrolling isometric combat zones are the real time fun part. But all the while maintaining a fluid feel, ie you can zipp around the campaign in your ship and choose which battles you take, with maybe critical ones and extra bonus ones like Mass Effect.


I've jury rigged the combat environment into Isometric, improved coding elements. I got a bunch of hot keys working and a make shift timer. I think I may have to scrap the onEnterFrame idea shifting back to tweens. I aint looked into zoom control and restricting the Isomap movement. I suspect I may need another container MC.

I'll start soon rebuilding the combat engine. This version is a whole bunch of different elements I've had in different files I'm shoving all into one.

Some "working" artwork from itchystudios. He's a professional artist who has like 2 heavily active art blogs one where he keeps saying he's going to make a 'bazzilion' games.

I'm taking inspiration from him and ben olding.

Concept: Scope

I deved a complex combat engine which guffed up and kept each units equally killing each other. So I'm thinking of auto generating random events then applying them if and when with less ranGen() calls as its NOT random.

In so doing I have to lower the complexity scope of the units. Assault/Regular/Heavy units are as implied. With Drones, Corvettes and Frigates available. Atm I'm thinking keep destroyers and cruisers back as possible ships you fight along side or maybe in the second version if I ever actually make the first version.

The tween , turn basedmovement system has been glitchy ever since I put it in. I'm thinking of replacing it with a onenterframe code which can more easily be stopped instantly. I can then maybe use tweens and my previous turnbased combat idea once a unit has stopped standard travel, ie in combat. Enabling timers for reloads and such.

As you maybe able to see I've increased max range to 3000m for the top class weapons. All units can use each others weapons but with a disadvantage. So its possible to have a corvette dragging and full level Distruper but no other weapons. To mix things up, but it will suffer a accuracy penality as the unit will have half the command skill of a frigate.

Cannons (Turrets - direct fire)
5.65mm, 12.mm, 20mm
Plasma Launchers (Missiles- direct fire)
light, medium, heavy
Disrupters (Arilitary- indirect fire)
Flak (ie Grenades), Standard (Mortar), Heavy (Artillery)
Disrupters suffer penality if used on front line.

Basically the set up is heavier units have more higher plasma and Disrupters, but slower firing and less effective against smaller units. Not sure if I am currently over loading units with too many abilities.

AI: I may for the first version have to dum down AI so it does some things but basically sends units towards enemy. If the AI gets in a bit of bother I may need to code some "do clever things" actions to compensate so it doesn't keep loosing units. Hopefuly and use the same AI functions I intend for the user units.

GUI/Gameplay I may set controls on enemy units so that you can choose which unit fires by a short cut set of buttons rather than having to select a unit then go back to the enemy to fire.

Zoom: My uber coded zoom may have been a waste of time alas.

BSO - BattleStarGalatica Lineships

Well I blew 2M and 60K on a Jortunn. They are fun but I expect that they need considerable up skilling of accuray skill as although this shoot 80 with each shot they miss an awful lot. Can easily get blindsided by escorts and fighters. Then for some stupid reason you can bounce around like a pinball if you hit another line.

Strongly not advise getting one :P

BSO - BattleStarGalatica

For a free to play web game BSO is pritty impressive. You choose either cylon or colonia. having been on two servers you get the impression more people play cols. But Cylons have more fun.

First off the "development" of this game is dubious much like supremacy1914, things seem to get added taken away then added again, to some extent I see the logic. Apart from stablity issues I'm dubious to see or feel any changes. Saying that stabilty has improved although the basic infrastructure is a little CPU heavy, all models have maybe a little too much detail which you can't scale down.

Overall the game is good, fun and quick to level up. You can play to some extent against AI but more fun against humans. Here is where connection speeds and ram come in to play. There are some assigments which could be expanded upon but aren't at present. Levels as you soon find are somewhat half indicators of skill. As what you do with your XP points directly effects your capabilities.

Fighter/Escort/Line are basically the 3 types of ships you can have, each with 3 models within the classes. You can then upgrade these or get an already upgraded cubit models. I started with a raptor, then I got an upgraded sycthe for 45K cubits and 0.6Mil Tyll, I kind of regret not getting the glaive for 60K cubits but for running around-leveling up the sycthe is better. I guess by default lines are better, but I currently wince when I see the cost of FTL travel for my escort.

Running Costs? I've managed to mine 1.3Mil Tyll out of 2Mill required to get a line with 13K xp per day or something, using an escort and I am still 3 levels away from being able to get access to them. So although the quantities sound large its not so big. (Although running a line appears ery costly). The real costs come in upgrading ship systems. Skills upgrade all ships and all systems so best get these first.

Large scale fleet battles pritty much relay on long range lobing of firepower. They are fun and epic although again can be very laggy. I'd prefer to see more wolf packs rather than 1 big lagging formation. I'll probably rig my line up exclusively for this purpose, or at least half, as long as you can keep the enemy to one side (at least for sycthe) you can keep your best guns on them for what range is needed.



Tips:

-If you connection/ cpu stats aren't great start with raptor, or hunter vessels as the faster interceptor craft will most likely lock out at top speed.
-Keep with what weapons you have and level up skills and base upgrades (ie no cubits).
-RCSslide is fun but useless you are in a group, even then it eats your power.
-Increase core stats like cannon, hull and computer power. Speed and mining are others which increase the speed of gameplay but dont necessarily help in combat.
-Don't level your ship systems too much, for example I wasted effort leveling up my fighter systems. I suspect you may want to keep your escort as your main ship and line for show/large battles.
-You need an extra 20K of tril for mining laser and scanner. before you blow your cash on an Escort
-Plan you ship strat. Given lines are big and slow you may want a quicker escort like scythe or banshee to gather resources with.
- Avoid group ECM stuff, its good but can really lag out. Also best get auto stuff rather than stuff you have to click. Same with missles.

Concept: Infrastructure

I'm mulling over the best way to create an AI and mechanics of the game. It makes sense the forward unit effectively acts as a path finder for the rest, rather than having to calc each units.

Mechanically I'm looking into predetermining/predicting events so the player sees a smooth action whilst its clunking away in the background. This is all around the idea that I can have a turnbased engine... each unit does so much damge per second, travels so far a second etc danger is it could be a bit cunkly. May need to reduce the duration past testing.

Range wise may have to dull down realism, if a unit is really firing at a unit on another lane its noticeably nearer. Could have "previous know target" set up, so even if you loose sight of enemy you could maybe select it and fire a grenade launcher. Same idea behind rally points. Units will all move towards a rally point (if you wish) for convience, although the enemy might bombard that location.

Be funny to see units fall back when injured, most others are very liner forward. Adds an annoying extra elelment, but can see how I could work in assault weapons are best for demoralising rather than outright killing. As I wanted to expand on the morale idea.

Unit Type: I love the idea of infantry, but may have to stick to ships else the level of detail required for visual fluff would be a nightmare.

Improved UI: Made the interface flat bar which makes in look more open. The Iso Grid really struggles with large maps, easier to use good old manual map with attachable details.

Concept - Weapons Range

Each square may need to be 50m, rather than 100m as two ships moving towards each other would close range very fast.
Range is split into good and bad (ranged).

Ironsight
Ironsight accuracy is hard at 350. Anything beyond 400m especially 600m is unacceptable unless there is a large area targets or #binoculars are employed as adjusted fire. (IE It maybe all units have unlimited ammo but firing at unacceptable ranges is considered wastage also it will reveal you more to the enemy.)

4x Scope
Basic scopes increase outter accuracy an extra 100m (to 500m) although the limitations of the rifle remain.

10x Scope
Sniper Scope. May increase total range. Sniper scope greatly improves long range targeting but under 300m the FOV is too narrow to be as effective.

Sniper
What I would more commonly see as a sniper is actually seconday to the Heavy sniper.

7.62mm Marksman/Sniper, (800m~2500m)
You defiantely need a spotter for anything beyond 800m. Adding a 10x scope to a battlerifle makes it a Marksman. IE better accuracy but weapon is still limited.

12.7mm Heavy Sniper, (1800m-2500m)
Designed as both Anti-Light Armour and counter-sniper, the 12mm is the true sniper. However it is heavy, needs to be fired in prone and has limited rate of fire. So its more a support/mortar type role than front line unit. Definately needs spotter to calcuate firing solution.

Concept 5

After building an experiemental combat engine and momentarily noticing that most of these style games occupy 1-7 lanes I realised I need to tone 21 lane scope down at least during testing.

For the present, there are 3 lanes like warfare 1944 where units are actually grouped in 1 MC. As for the World Map: Improved OOP and classed most stuff up so the fla is neater.

Ideas:

Formations/Fleets (Group Control/AI)
A player can choose a formation set up (maybe manually do so). This will mean a player can advance a group of units with scouts, machinegun type units on flanks, do pepper pot 2:2 cover formation type stuff. Maybe have it that more well trained units can do that automatically but not cheap units. This will also ease AI capability / construction.

Players may also group individual units into fleets to ease micro and enable reinforcement type stuff.

MovetoCover (breaking up the warzone in to easy chunks)
I like the idea of having a massive battlefield but it would be over the top both to code and to play. So much like 1944 I will break the map into sections where cover is, then units can move to the next cover, not just move forward like warlords. Maybe have it so units can lay down cover, or indeed if large units get disabled they can then act as cover.

Rally Points
User can define rally points so units will automatically move up if wanted.

CombatEngine
I'm working off infantry concept at the moment. Basically most main weapons can fire upto 8squares but are progressively less effective. (Stuff like Missles, grenade launches, grenades, mortars will have longer ranges.) I'm thinking of stealing an rpg engine ideas to ease things. Have just 4 arcs, and restricting reactions. IE units have to focus on thier lane first and foremost. So unless a unit has another unit infront of them, that unit can't effectively fire onto another lane.

Changing lanes is not available although may be added.

2 of the arcs will be sides, in other games if you get past a unit, thats it you just continue, in this game hopefully the units can attack sideways again based on restrictions. ie maybe some sort of "suprise attack"

Sneakiness/stealth/ fog of war I have to think about.

Concept (4)

The "full" iso structure of the game is restrictive in the sense only one object can move at a time effectively in close quarters.

So going to take a stab at a ben olding/warfare game, with the current iso as the world map.

Basically, I say "basically" the player places units on a map, and off they go to assault the enemy. I envison a mix between total war and men of war. ie players need to hold positions not just advance. More fluid and more fun.

Current Game Engine Version 0.001
movieclip world structure for good and bad guys
moveArray, so I can add objects to tween command

Known issues
there is a delay in adding movieclips which causes variables not to init
may need to have swap depth so faster units can pass slower ones.

trying to figure out how to use tween, so set interval say for 1 second and a tween which moves the units the correct distance for that 1 second, then the timer fires again and the unit moves 1 more space, hopefully seemlessly but last time it went crazy.

ie the game will be turnbased but more fluid for more "fun" gamer appeal

Game Concept (3)

OOP'd more stuff,

characters have UID and OOP'd code
minimap now holds more variables, will need to ref minimap more as Iso needs to be just for show.
enabled faction colours on minimap
improved freezoom, but doesn't recognise lastzoom for first scale change

Game Concept

V...6 Added freescale, OOP char init, improved 2d map, converted to basic ships, resized control boxes.

Game Concept

So this may become the twitter account for my game design. Although I'm interested in making a xcom inspired game, animating and structuring ground environs is a nightmare. So the idea is to convert it into a space ship game. With blank space as a background I maybe able to go upto 50x50 tiles without melting the average processor. (fully zoomed out would dramatically loose detail though)

Current Version: 0.0.1.4

Interface. Striped down concept to make the game feel simpler.
Enabled OOP character movement. Detects edge/character is in the way.
World Zoom Control. (Maybe a fully adjustable zoom)
Keyboard Movement controls. ( convert to plane up down movement)
Overview Map. Tracks characters, will show factions possibly weapons range
Combat Engine: Some sort of established RPG engine, I think I can then fluff it with extra detail which has no real mechanic.
Movement: May enable more complex movement, but thinking fast speeds should be straight line affairs.
Points: I'm thinking there will be combat points, then logistic points. IE you could win a battle but loose a war. Basic kill ratio.

Glitches to look out for: I intend to have fog of war so will have to enable a extra bit of code so if you move to an occupied square you didn't know an enemy was in, you would stop before it and suffer a suprise attack.

Known Bugs: zdepth sorting isn't enabled. When a character is clicked to move other characters go translucant to hide the glitch. Give zdepth sorting still has glitches and needs on enterframe I think its reasonable standby.

G120

G120: Started from one system managed to overwhelm neighbours and grab 2 super planets. As yet I've got good research done thanks to all the science planets I've grabbed. (I've done this once before but didn't blog it before, need to blog to remember.)
*Pending*

Iso Game Concept

Given the nature of my coding ability and the game mechanics I hit on a different tact. The game could be more in the nature of space hulk.

The player starts aboard a low grade cargo ship as a security detail who exist in cryo-sleep until needed. And hence works his/her way up the ranks.

Each unit within the team has an exoskeleton crisis suit which is a multipurpose cryopod / power lifter / tactical armour and space suit.

This would make it more reasonable, as the mechanics are a little wooden.