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GDI
-Component towers, building upgrades, etc: Buildings and structures with addons can sell them back if the player needs money or wants to replace it with a different one.
-Underground equipment: Worker/Vehicle places mines that act as sensors for finding subteranean vehicles and tunnels. They can detonate with an emp blast to halt sub' units for ground penetrating units to kill or for other units to disable and prepare them further so that tiberium can leech off them. Tiberium nearby will grow faster.
-Armor and defense: Almost everything is GDI's arsenal can continuously upgrade it's armor to a point. (Slow and exepensive when going for full protection.)
Example: You pick a building and choose an armor upgrade level: 1, 2, or 3. The building will go through the chosen number of stages, with each take longer and costing more than the last. Also, the higher levels will offer extra benefits, such as being more diffcult to capture, disable etc.
Also, more upgrades are available for buildings: Built in Firestorm shield. Vein protection. Garrison ports.
-Harvester: GDI's harvester is tough and has high capacity, but is pricey and slow. (Extra slow when loaded). It removes tiberium more extensively, so it brings money in faster. The downfall is that you have to be careful and not take too much or your fields won't grow back as fast.
-Vehicles: Vehicles can be built with extra equipment at the factory. You click the factory build que icon and click the extra mini icons on it. You can add extra armor, guns, sensors, etc. Takes more time and costs more however.
-Salvaging: GDI can salvage vehicles, un-manned or destroyed, by having the harvestor pick them up or have a carry-all fly over and pick it up. The vehicle is then dropped off at a special building or normal building. Once dropped off, money is added to your stores as the vehicle is broken down.
-Veins: GDI can harvest veins for moderate income.
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Nod
-General upgrading system: Nod has upgrading abilities like GDI, but their's are more centralized. Nod buildings feature an ability similair to that from the GLA in Generals. When destroyed, a bunker is left where a new building can be rebuilt quickly. Instead of individual armor levels like GDI's, Nod's underground system is augmented by the presence of a nearby bunker. When close enough, a destroyed or damaged Nod structure can rebuild faster. Also, more infantry can appear after destruction. If the underground "hole" is destroyed, then the structure is destroyed completely.
-Turtling: Many Nod structures can close up and deactivate to improve thier protection and reduce power consumption. Defenses like the laser turret, obelisk and SAM site stay closed up or undergound when not in use.
-Tunnelnetwork: Nod's is similair to GLA's, but requires the construction of under ground tunnels instead of instant unit transfer and availability once a tunnel building is built. Any explored can be reached even if nothing is there, but the farther it is away from the closest above ground tunnel entrance, the longer it takes for the bulding to start commencing.
Once built, a tunnel entrance can be open or closed. When closed, units will not use it and it will stay hidden. When open, units will use it by themselves, but the structure is revealed and allows for easy kills of underground units near the entrance if someone should happen to find it in use.
-Power: Buildings take advantage of the underground bunker system by requiring less power if a bunker is nearby. Also, buildings can upgrade to have their own power supplies, lowering requirements further.
-Salvage: Nod picks up their salvage with the harvester. The harvester can drop it off at base or enter the tunnel network. When using the tunnel network, the salvage is immedietely sent to base and the harvester can leave and go back to what it was doing.
-Harvesting: Nod's harvester is the opposite of GDIs. Less armor and capacity. They can however take advantage of the tunnel system and simply drop their containter off at get a fresh one by entering and exiting. They don't have to drive back to the refinery if not necessary. Also, they have the ability to burrow into the ground to protect themselves. Somewhat like the old tick tank, they can go almost all the way into the ground and increase their defenses and wait for reinforcements to hurry over.
-Laser Walls: Nod's laser walls aren't always on. They only activate when something tries to cross. Infantry can't make it through and only tough and fast vehicles can get through with some of their health remaining. The Laser Wall posts stay retracted and hidden unless activated.
-Tiberium technology: Nod likes Tiberium, (obviously
), so they use it more and try to proliferate it.Nod units and buildings have better protection against tiberium threats than compared to GDI. Their infantry in particular loose much less health. Their buildings and units survive better when exposed to tiberium gas.
A powerplant can take some tiberium and get a major increase in output temporarily. It is expensive and is tiberium is taken out of your supplies.
Nod can that can take excess tiberium and spread it over a large area to create a new field for farming. This is done by a special vehicle that carries a shipment out and begins planting.
-Veins: Nod can harvest them for moderate income or use them for special weapons production.
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Cabal (Or similair a side like the Scrin. However, I'll refer to them as Cabal for now.)
-Technology: Cabal's equipment tends to be pricey to build but worth it. He can save overhead costs by their different way of functioning however.
-Economy: Cabal doesn't use credits. Everything is based on tiberium.
-Buildings: Cabal's buildings are capable of self repair to an extent. Like the cyborgs from TS, they have stages of damage. His structures always repair their health for free to their max, but to be rebuilt back to no damage. you have to pay and repair them. Depending on the stage of damage, their functioning capacity lowers.
Also, buildings grow underground root systems, and when near enough to tiberium or connected to the underground hub system, they can repair faster and require less energy from your powerplants. They also perform their operations better.
-Smaller units: Small units, like infantry sized to car sized, are cybernetic and can self repair when near tiberium. They take damage in stages and have to be taken back to base to be put back to full functional status. They are expensive to build, but repairing them is cheap and quick. They leave tiberium when destroyed.
-Larger units: Larger units are mechanical but use extensive shielding for protection. Their shields can take a certain amount of damage. Once depleted, the unit itself takes damage quickly. They can however plant themselves into a tiberium field and increase the rate of shield regeration.
-Harvesting: Cabal harvests several ways: He uses worker machines to collect and transfer Tiberium instead large vehicle like Nod and GDI.
Also, he can extend a root from the his base to a field which slowly brings in a continous flow of tiberium without affecting the size of the field. The larger the field, the greater the rate of flow. His workers can take advantage of the root system and drop their loads off at a small structure which can be built close to it. It takes time for the root to extend.
However, he can be taken advatage of since with his workers are weak and of low capacity and destruction of a field and bring a halt to income since he must extend a root to another area if depleted.
-Salvage: Workers can disassemble wreckage and spread it around to increase tiberium growth. They can also do this to structures.
-Defense: His defenses are similair to Nod's laser weapons. His don't do as much damage per shot, but they fire faster. His are very effective against infantry and light armor.
-Susecptibility: EMP can be a problem as he doesn't have infantry.
-Cyborg production. Enemy infantry that have been tied up by his reapers or have just died not too long ago can be picked up and taken to processing. Once there, they can be quickly and cheaply be turned into cyborgs. This is much faster than normally training cyborgs.
-The environment: Cabal can use the environment to his advantage by inducing vein , visceroid, floater and tiberium growth. Tiberium creatures do not attack Cabal's buildings and units as they have tiberium. (He also needs these creatures as they aren't affected by EMP unlike everything else he has).
One special technology of Cabal's is to cause green tiberium to transmute into blue tiberium. This takes time as the Tiberium has to leech more material to make the change. However, once high enough on the tech tree, he can collect alot of material this way.
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This is what I have for now. I'll add and edit later as I listen to you guys.
(Btw it's kinda late as I post this so my grammar or thinking may be off).
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04/28/06
So I've been thinking about units more, so here's some thoughts:
-MCVs and building: The MCV system stays the same, but each side has support units that assist contruction and maintainance.
The support units can't build brand new buildings on their own. What they can do is speed up repairs and reconstruction of damaged and destroyed buildings. They can also help remove wreckage and rubble for increasing funds and clearing land. Lastly, they can do terraforming, such as smoothing and paving areas. (If deformable terrain is included in the game.) You select highlight an area and they go to work.
You can perform repairs just like in the older C&C titles with the tool button, but these unit can repair on their own. This very useful for maintaining walls, which can become quite tedious, especially after a large battle.
To help remove tedium, you can que buildings and their build locations. The buildings will popup one by one. This is the same for walls. You make the lines and they are placed. As you click around, a counter on your cursor shows how much this will cost.
-Barracks and factories: You can use the old system of unit creation by selecting your primary building and clicking on the sidebar. You can also click each building individually and que unit construction.
Depending on the building or side, you can have several units on hold or being built at once. For example, lets say you are building an expensive unit but want to start building something else. If you have enough slots available, the current construction is put on hold while new construction starts. If you have three slots, you can go back and forth or even construct three at once. However, the construction rate slows down for each unit if more are being built at the same time in the same building.
-Building garrison: Units can garrison buildings like before. However, depending on their weapon, they may not be able to fire it. Also, as a building receives damage from attack, the units inside randomly loose their health or even die. (Tougher units like cyborgs and machines take less damage or can even survive building collapse.)
Units inside a building can perform more functions, like those they would normally do on the battle field. A medic in a building will heal units inside or soldier units will attack units that try to enter.
A garrisoned building can still be entered by enemy troops. As they go in, they will hurt or kill a unit inside. On the other hand, units inside can fight back.
Let's say you have 7 soldiers in a building. The enemy can try to take it over by sending soldiers in to clear it out or by using special units which happen to be very good at short range attacks or are tough. If you send one guy in, he will usually die while those in the building get hurt. Send in enough and eventually you can take over the building. (Units like the cyborg or the terror drone from RA2, if they made it into the building, could easily kill many of the occupants).
Unlike previously, you can't tell if a building is occupied or not. Also, if you have troops inside, you can tell those in the building to hold their fire. However, it takes a moment for units inside to start attacking. Also, if the outside enemy happens to be on the other side of a building, especially a large one, it will take some time for the units inside to make their way over to shoot out.
Even though you might not know if a building is garrisoned or not, you can take advantage of their positioning by surrounding the building when attacking or drawing all their fire towards one area while you sneak in from the other side.
One other thing about garrisoning buildings is that those with garages or enough room can also house vehicles, which can be very good for ambushing or hiding assets while a battle goes on. However, if the building is destroyed or an infantry unit gets inside and there aren't any soldiers to protect it, they vehicle can de disabled, destroyed, or stolen.
-Directional damage and line of sight: Though not common, some units and buildings feature better protection in certain directions. A unit like the tick tank or a mech has very strong protection in the front but is vulnerable in the rear. A defense like the obelisk is very well armored in the direction it faces, but weaker in the back.
Some units have a limited arc of fire. Artillery pieces may have to furl up then redeploy if their target moves too far to the left or right. Mechs have torsos and weapons that can only turn so much berfore the enitire unit has to turn towards the enemy. (Modders have been complaining about this for years for not being avaiable
). -General commands: Certain units can be given a few commands that allow them to do their own thing while you focus on something else.
A group of infantry can be selected and told to garrison an area or capture an area.
You click and pull a circle to encompass an area then the infantry do waht you've commanded, such as garrison or capture an area. When chosen as a single group, they will split up as evenly as possible to spead up building capture or to fill up multiple buildings.
Worker units can given a command to scavage an area and take apart and collect what ever is there. Or, they can be commanded to maintain an area by repairing buildings, units, cleaning out things like tiberium veins and mines, and fillling in and cleaning up craters and what not.
Many units have commands like return to base, patrol around area, or stay away from threats. When told to return to base, they will try to take a safe path and get repaired or reload ammo. When told to patrol, they will search around and area to clear shroud and look for enemy units to engage. Stay away from threats is pretty obvious.
Harvester units can be given a few commands, such as collect tiberium as fast as possible, graze and move around between nearby fields to keep the tiberium fields growing, or stay away from threats.
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05/02/06
I just skimmed back over the previous postings and realized that I really shouldn't be posting when tired and expecting not to make a whole lot of mistakes.
I'll go back and clean that later, but for now I have some thoughts I'll throw down while they're in mind:
I've done some modding and mapping for Red Alert to Generals before as something as a side hobby. One of the things that is great about these games is the manner in which game data is formatted and untilized. It's very easy to jump in and begin playing with simple things like unit health or weapons and only moderately difficult to do extensive modifications. (Most of difficulty is simply from keeping track of all the changes made and how they relate.)
The move towards a more object oriented layout in the ini files that became very prominant in Generals was good decision. They made minor changes easy and fast yet allowed for some very high limits and extensive changes.
Now, I am not familiar with the changes that BFME and BFME II received engine wise, so please forgive me for suggesting already existing changes and features.
With that mentioned, here are requests that I, and I think many others, would like to see implemented without being too much to ask:
-Ballistics and line of fire: For keeping processing resources required down, the system in Generals worked well. Now that a few years have passed and we have a new game, some of the ways for firing projectiles in a more realistic manner that required some scripting to acheive could possible get some better hardcoding.
Currently, scatter radius is simply a method of having the projectile set to target a point within a flat radius. It works well, but there are cases were we'd like to do something more realistic, where the distance to target affects the accuracy.
Total Annihilation, for example, did a less 2d approach and instead had a set delta value, like acceptable aim delta, to dictate the amount of divergence possible when a projectile is spawned and sent flying. Basically, 5 degrees ment a 10 degree cone of fire.
While C&C and TA had different intentions during design, I think C&C should move up to this system for ballistics. Tank battles in particular become more interesting and enjoyable as movement and range control become more important factors. The big point though is that this helps fight off unit spamming, as someone who manages their units better can stand a much better chance than preiously.
-Tracking: Another thing lacking is tracking and leading fire. This hasn't really been an issue as rounds from units flew fast enough and firing ranges were low, but there are some opportunities for this to be improved now without being detrimental both to gameplay and processing requirements.
A moving unit should usually be more difficult to hit, especially when it doesn't move in a straight line or constant speed.
A simple way to do this would be to allow for moderate tracking, (the unit firing doesn't fully lead, but only half or a quater of the way. When using full leading, something like a bike, when the calcualtions are made for the firing unit, could end up with a targeting lead being 40 feet up in the are just because it hit a bump even though it's path changed little.)
Weapons are indeed accurate, and should be, but a far away unit moving quickly on uneven terrain should be able to avoid single rounds a bit more easily than currently in Generals. What this does though, for both sides, is give the guy you gets the jump the opportunity to cause alot of damage to a unit that is sitting still or moving over open terrain.
Missiles tracking: The missile system isn't bad in General's. Not at all. However, there a few little tweaks that can be done to give it a more C&C feel.
The biggest tweak would be to simply change the locomotor to where all that is needed is for a normal homing missiles would be acceleration, top speed, and turn rate, much like the way it was done in the old games. The lock-on in General's works great, but the missiles' hit rate is actually too high. (If there is such a thing.
). Dog fighting isn't very much possible in this form and missiles often move in sharp, unatural arcs. This works for Generals, but it doesn't so much for C&C, where garunteed hits aren't always there.-Locomotion: The redo of the locomotion system was great. It added alot of possiblities.
There are some more features that I would like to see added, and one that has plaqued C&C. (One got fixed in RA2.
)The first thing is strafing. Many people want strafing for helicoptors, hovering vehicles.
Adding it in could open up some fun tactics. For example: You have agile units that move around quite well to avoid fire. However, let's say they are heavy, big, and armored and can't turn very quickly. They have almost all the things you'd want in an attack vehicle except for a poor ability for defending against rear or flanking attacks.
That is a minor thing, but one thing that you don't see as often as you should are ground units firing and moving at the same time. Now, they do fire when they are in range, but when in range and attacking, they usually sit still.
That works well as a balancing mechanic for players who don't manage enough, but a big thing with fighting is contantly adjusting range to your advantage.
Then again, I'm not sure on how that should be done without hurting the game. I would like to see something like vehicles automatically backing away from a group of shorter range units when attacking or moving around and using the terrain to throw off fire. But mostly, the scenario of powerful units lumbering into the enemies territory while just firing away with pause to both.
Oh well, I hope I made some sense.
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05/05/06
I got some things I want to add to the topic on units moving and firing and possible solutions on how to implement subterranean vehicles in this version.
Previously, I had talked about units firing on the move. This has led me back to something I remember from TS.
In the Rules.ini file, there was a damage modifier that did something to the effect of causing the first shot fired by a unit on an idle or unaware enemy to deal more damage.
I think this is a feature that should return and in a more profound form. Getting the drop on someone is an important part of combat and is another mechanic that can add more depth to the game.
Anyway, that's something that should be played around with later in the game's develpoment.
Now for the other issue:
There have been noises on the internet of the development team being unsure on whether or not to implement subteranean vehicles. I don't know how things are going to I can't really say what to do. But, I figure I'll throw some ideas out as I and many other fans would truly miss one of Nod's trademark tactics.
The biggest problem I'm going to assume is that using the same type of system from TS gives users of those kinds of vehicles too great an ability as the game stands. With General's to look at, the pace of the game was very quick during combat. Many units could move very quickly and stuff went boom quickly.
Getting a headstart with subteranean units popping up instantly and doing their duty would be a problem for the defender. The first and easiest way to counter would be to have some sort of detection increased, but that would take the fun away by being rather cumbersome to utilize and annoying to fight against.
I'm also going to guess that maps are going large again, (Reletively speaking, with the time it took to cross the average TS map compared to the average Generals map in general.), and being able to take a straight path to any location without using aircraft would cause big delays between a sub-vehicle attack from one player and the reponse and retaliatory actions from the other player.
So here are some solutions that may have merit:
-Sub-units can can come out of the ground quickly, but breaking earth and getting back under takes more time. The unit has get it's "nose" into the ground before it can really grab the earth to dig itself in.
-Sub-units cannot stop and turn to change direction while underground. (They can stop however). When changing direction, they have to move foward and turn in an arc, much like an aircraft. This holds true for changing their depth level as well. They have a rate at which they can change their pitch.
-Sub units have a maximum pitch at which they can rise. (Maybe 65 degress?). They cannot travel straight up as they would fall right back in the tunnel or hole they just made. (Unless it happens to be a special unit, like one with lots of legs or grabbers of some sort). They can descend straight down however.
-Sub units can be commanded to stay under ground stationary and at different depths. (Probably two different depths at the most.)
At the first and low depth mode, they can move at a decent pace. (A little slower than when above ground.) They can also change direction faster than compared to deep mode.
However, they are easier to locate, (When detecting, you get a better idea on their exact position), and are susceptable to certain ground penetrating weapons and extremely powerful explosions. (Like Nukes or Ion Cannon discharges). When stationary, they are slightly more difficult to locate without sensitive equipment.
When down lower, they move slower over all, but are much more difficult to pinpoint and are not susceptable to any above ground weapons. When stationary, they cannot be located.
Also, when several are in route together towards an area, it is highly unlikely for a player to locate where exactly they are. There is audible rumbling and sensors are going crazy, but pinpointing is impossible.
Well, I hope EA is reading this and possibly liking some of these ideas.
Oh, before I go, I just remember a few interesting ideas for Cabal or Nod units:
Possibly for Nod: A type of mobile mine that picks a spot and plants itself in the ground and sprouts a very small amount of Tiberium. (Much more if in a Tiberium field however). When a unit gets close, it explodes and sends small crystal shards and spores flying. Infantry caught in the explosion die instantly or many times change into visceroids. The spores/gas linger for a bit and do damage to vehicles and visceroid transmogfrifcation should infantry still be around. (Could possibly be upgraded to carry more gas or have a greater effect when in alot of Tiberium.)
Possibly for Cabal: (This is sort of a variation on the attack dog and terror drone theme).
A small drone containing Tiberium can turn infantry into visceroids immediately by getting close with it's needle injecting them with beyond lethal amounts.
It also has the ability to assimilate visceroids and take them over. (It pretty much enters into it like a virus, albeit a very large one.) Once inside, it integrates itself through various control mechanisms and basically becomes a nucleus of sorts. Once done, the visceroid becomes a controlable unit.
The unit is cheap, quick, but extremely weak on it's own. It will attack infrantry but immediately go for an available visceroid if possible.
The visceroid can be given commands, but it doesn't obey vary well and can be abit unwieldly.
Now, if you can get two or more hijacked visceroids close to each, you can merge them into a larger one. You can effectively create a super visceroid. It responds much better and can take a good deal of punishment, but as it gets damaged, control units become destroyed and it starts splitting back into smaller, uncontrolled visceroids.
Since they are controlled by machines, EMP will destroy the control unit and severly damage or kill the visceroid.
That's it for now. Later
Edited by thinimus, 06 May 2006 - 00:33.
