Custom Unit Construction

[croxis]

Custom Unit Construction and upgrades

Related Ideas
Customizable Units - TC300

Arguments for Support

• Potential to allow more creative gameplay
• Very radical idea, new to the OP series
• Adds tactical elements
• Causes player to manage their time smarter
• Makes adding new weapons and chasses more easy as only the component will have to be designed.

Argument Against

• At risk of becoming too complicated
• Very radical idea, new to the OP series
• May end up taking up too much of the players time
• The art team will have to work on what they allready built

Description

Assumption:  I am assuming there will be an assortment of weapons and chasses, more than what was in OP2

In SMAC/X the player was able to design their own units with an assortment of chasse(sp), reactors, weapons, armor, and two unit augmentation slots.  Obviously in a turn based game the player has time to design these, in a RTS things need to be much more simple so a player can do things quickly.

I propose three modules - the chasse, weapon slot, and augmentation slot, although this obviously doesn't have to be set in stone.  Same with my examples that follows, its just for the gist.

Chasse:
These are the lynx, panthers, etc we all know and love.  Possible stats for them are max speed, acceleration, reactor/engine horse power, turning rate, mass, base ore cost, construction time, base hitpoints, etc etc.  It can be complex or simple, or complex but the user only sees simple

[The reactor power is a mechanism to prevent a very big weapon (siege class?) on a lynx.  However mass and horsepower could do the same thing, put too big a weapon on and the sucker just wont move period.  horsepower might be a better idea in  tactical sence.  If horse power is used to compute speed of units going up hills then it would add a dimension of gameplay - units that have a lot of mass to the horsepower would go slow or nto be able to climb steep terrain while a unit with less massive add-ons could.  A player would have to know his terrain and build his units accordingly, and vice versa]

Weapons:
There the player selects what weapons to mount.  Again there is an assortment of weapons depending on what is researched.  The weapons could have accuracy, mass, additional hp cost, additional ore cost, additional construction time, turret speed, reactor power used, etc etc.  It may be considered to put the scout sensors, convect arms, repair arms, etc here instead of having them as pre defined units.  Putting a scout sensor on a tiger would have a slower moving scout but provide amazing sensor range/other scoutelike bonuses due to the extra hardware avalable.

Augmentation:
These are optional bonuses that a player can add to the unit, for an ore cost and construction cost.  These could range from armour bonuses (which would have ore and mass costs) to accuracy bonuses to (depending how RCC are implimented) a mobile RCC which would provide the benifits of an RCC for units in a given range.  all of these allow potential for specialized units.


Construction:  
I see this best implimented by letting a player save their designs to be called up by a simple drop down menu in the factory, or being able to design something and not save it as the player only will want to build that particular unit once.  The design interface should also be something the player can have quick access to outside of the factory and shouldn't interfear with too much of the screen.

Upgrading:
This proposal also allows for interesting upgrade ideas.  If a player wants to retool units they have they can just build the turret or augmentation, bring their units into the vfactory or a garage, and swap the weapon or augmentation.  Turrest can be build faster and cheeper than whole new units and it would give gerages more use in game.  The interface to do the upgrades should also be speedy.

[croxis]

Addition:  If reverse engineering is implemented this would make things more easy for the modelers as well.  Instead of having to make all the Plymouth units with thors (as an example) the game engine would just take the eden model and plop it on the Plymouth unit.

[Chandler]

In SMAC/X the player was able to design their own units with an assortment of chasse(sp), reactors, weapons, armor, and two unit augmentation slots.  Obviously in a turn based game the player has time to design these, in a RTS things need to be much more simple so a player can do things quickly.

I propose three modules - the chasse, weapon slot, and augmentation slot, although this obviously doesn't have to be set in stone.  Same with my examples that follows, its just for the gist.

Perhaps a system like Warzone 2100 - an RTS - that only research and assembled the following:

• Chassis - i.e. Lynx, Panther, Tiger (can't remember WZ2100 equivalent
• Drivetrain - would be new to OP (in WZ2100, had Wheels, Half-Track, Tracked, Hover, etc)
• Weapons - i.e. Laser/Microwave, Railgun, RPG (in WZ2100, Machinegun, Rockets, Mortar, etc. WZ2100 Also had "weapons" like a Sensor Turret. Units could be "assigned" to a Sensor Tower/vehicle with a sensor turret, and anything that came within sensor range would be attacked by the vehicles attached to that tower/turret)

Edit: Cut down the quote. B)  

[croxis]

that could work too, although it might make the plug n play modeling a bit more difficult.  The augmentations were just an idea i put out there: it could just be the vehicle and weapon (in which case custom unit construction almost becomes pointless)

[Betaray]

I really like the idea

I propose to streamline the idea even more that from the main menu there would be a separate "unit designer" where you can design the units you want and save the varients that you can use while you are in game

the varients could only be used in game once you reshurch all the components in it (so that say your only version of a lynx has a really high tech reactor, you would be pretty screwed at the beginning) of corse there would be pre made varients of units to select from

but yes, I beleave this could add a whole new depth of gameplay for op3  

[TH300]

I think you are proposing the same as this: http://forum.outpostuniverse.net/index.php?showtopic=2719

[croxis]

*cough*

The sad thing is I remember reading that.  Oh I should do my homework better.  I don't suppose a mod could merge the thread?

[Betaray]

well than, this kinda proves that this is a pretty popular concept I would hate to see it left out

[croxis]

The game isn't being designed by committee ya know, its up to the devs what they want to add

[Betaray]

but the will of the cummunity should sway the dev team quite a bit, I mean they are making the game for us, and I doubt they want us to think it sucks

[croxis]

Heh, you should have seen what was said in the chatroom last night.

[Freeza-CII]

The problem with units that can be customized is some one will come up with a way to have the END ALL FINAL SOLUTION WEAPON and slap it on a lynx and drive and killing every one and then what will happen every one else will start doing the same damn thing.

[Chandler]

The problem with units that can be customized is some one will come up with a way to have the END ALL FINAL SOLUTION WEAPON and slap it on a lynx and drive and killing every one and then what will happen every one else will start doing the same damn thing.

How I see this idea, IF applied to OP2:

Research Lynx Chassis
Research Wheeled Drive
Research Lasers
Can Now Build -> Wheeled Laser Lynx
Research Guard Post
Can Now Build -> Laser Guard Post
Research Panther Chassis
Can Now Build -> Wheeled Laser Panther
Research Tracked Drive
Can Now Build -> Tracked Laser Lynx
                          Tracked Laser Panther
Research Rail Gun
Can Now Build -> Wheeled RPG Lynx
                           Tracked RPG Lynx
                           Wheeled RPG Panther
                           Tracked RPG Panther
                          RPG Guard Post
etc...

You need to have a END ALL FINAL SOLUTION WEAPON for someone to put it on a Lynx (in OP2, EAFSW was Thor's Hammer - and you COULD put it on a Lynx).

If need be, have settings so you can't put superweapons (i.e. Supernova's) on a small chassis (i.e. Lynx), because the chassis is too small and can't support the weight of that weapon.

[croxis]

Right, the end all weapon was on the lynx already.  Thats why i suggested either a simple reactor output or a engine horsepower thing and mass to act as a limiting factor/punishment for putting a big gun on a tiny chasse, which I wrote it must have been unclear, I'll edit it so it is.

Something like this would require, you know, something called play balance.

[Tramis]

For once I agree with Freeza.  People would simply make a EAFSW and thats all theyd need.

Suppose however that you made a quick-tuning setting.  On the menu there is a list of all the weapons/vehicles and you can add stats to a certain attribute, which would then decrease others (IE you can push the Armor rating up, but then the vehicle's speed drops) and all vehicles built will have that rating (not the ones already in play)

So lets say you have a building just for this ("tuning facility" or somesuch) You go to this building and select the laser.  You have settings for: Power Source, Heat Sinks, Focusing Lens.  You increase the Power Source, and the Heat Sinks go down.  The end result being an increase in damage, but a decrease in ROF.  You then build a Laser Lynx, and these effects are in place on this lynx.

These changes would be subtle however, not enough to make a really weak Thors Hammer equal to a really uber Laser.  It would be about 30-50 damage difference to go from all the way down, to all the way up.

[croxis]

Thats another option that could work, there are some mechanics question - for example the weapon settings would ultimatly have to change the damage per second, anywyas...

Let me ask you this, if you play Eden in OP2 do you still build laser lynx when you get tiger thors?  From what i've read generally not.  If the same vehicle and weapon mechanics from OP2 are used in OP3 then the point is very valid, user custom units would be usless as people will just use the latest vehicles and weapons (although it could still be done backend with the engine combining the parts together).

What would make custom building more useful is the addition of more advanced tactics.


Heres a scenario of what i have in mind, lots of embellishment and assumption on my part

Lets say the drive units have horsepower and weapons have turn speed and mass.  Your opponent notices you keep attacking with bigger and heavier weapons as the game goes along.  To counteract they research small, nimble,  fast chassis and addons.  These small craft obviously can't have heavy weapons on it, it would defeat their point.  

As you bring your hopefully final assault force of triple barrel thor lions over one of the two flat routs to the opponents base (they have a hard time climbing the otherwise mountainous terrain), your opponent comes in from the mountain above - his units more able to handle the mountains.  With the circle unit order, his units circle around faster than your turrets can.  With the opponent managing to pick off your tanks one by one and you having a hard time taking out his.  Your opponent attacked too soon however; you are not too far far from your base and you manage to retreat into the safety of yo fortifications before your losses became too severe.  

To counteract your opponents specialization you bring some of your lions into the garage.  Not wanting to spend the time to research lighter turrets, or spend precious ore constructing entire new units, you swap out the massive thors with advanced lasers you kept from earlier in the game.  Lucky you also managed to reverse engineer a turret speed augmentation from one of the few units you managed to destroy.  Thors are known to damage wreckage to the point were reverse engineering is almost impossible.

With your new mixed attack force you set out again.  Your opponent is smarter this time around and engages you when you are further from your base but did not expect your faster turrets.  You managed to take out more of his units to the point where he can no longer inflict enough damage to destroy your units and you proceed to erraticate his base as he didin't develop heavy enough weaponry for his guard posts when he went off to specilize in light fast units and weapons.


There can be other cases, you can go and developed some advanced ECM, so your oponent could counter with ECCM on all hyour units or develop a powerful senor to be equipted on a couple of tigers for the same effect.


THIS is what I was talking about when I mentioned interesting choices and the limited resources of time.   All our ideas and suggestions are great, but they don't exist in a vacume.  In a good game everything is linked together and affects each other.  I would very much enjoy reading more details on what the developers have in mind for the game as I think it would help all of us give better suggestions.

[Freeza-CII]

OK i am not going to be nice any more TUNNING is for racing and Space game with lots of stupid space ships.  War machines have there purpose to blow the f*** out of things and live that requires Armor weapons and movement you wouldnt worry to much about the weapon because if people can customize those they will just find a patten that produces a super mega END ALL WEAPON (THOR ARE NOT THE END ALL WEAPON DAMN IT)  Speed People will just try to produce a unit that is so fast that they will just rush right up to the CC and blow it up.  Yes like we do now but each side has the same speed upgrades thus there being a balance.  With the tuning you wont have a balance.  POWERSOURCE.  Its called Research people You want a new power plant research it you dont just pull it in the garage and put on a Aftermarket Fusion enhancer.  Armor there is research upgrades for that already.  Want to put that stupid ass level 5 atamantium on a lynx so you can just plow through tigers.  Dont seem very kosher to me.  Remember there are more the one unit each having there own properties Tuning a lynx so it can go faster then what you researched just doesnt seem right.  The Scientists Researched its stuff Lens and heat sink would have already been thought up because there not going to  make some crap weapon and then slap it on a chassis remember those weapons keep them alive.  Not like there are a bunch of red neck rejects for planet earth that hitch hicked along to where ever and set up a shot gun shop and mounted revolvers on a bike with duct tape. GAH RANT RANT RANT.

[croxis]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but didn't TC300 say this isn't going to be just a wargame?

I could go through each of your points one by one, but I doubt you would listen.

[Freeza-CII]

It should be a game of survival not a game of lets sit around manage a colony till we are blue in the face War is big part of the game with out it It just would be a RTS.

[croxis]

how is any of this related to colony management?  I really don't mean to be insulting, but have you actually read what i wrote in this thread?  Every last bit of it is about war and bring more ways to blow stuff up.  Not a darn bit in here is about colony management.  The only ONLY things colony related are guard posts, garages, and research.

I'm trying to understand where you are coming from, I really truly am, but all I am seeing is you writing contradictory statements.


Without war it would just be an rts?  I don't know about you but every rts I have played usually has been just about war. In every rts I have played the buildings and research were nothing more than means to the ends, which is to build more units.  Removing war doesn't make it just an rts, it just makes it simcity in space - and if the colony part is like op2, it would be a very boring one at that.

From what i have seen you are in favor of the whoever-has-more-units-win game.  Do you actually call that a war game?  War game enthusiasts would probably laugh at that.  If its a more units win game, the ultimately it comes down to how well you collect resources (in this case ore) and how well you optimize the ore collection process.  Do you disagree with me that the player who collects more ore faster can build more units faster?  If its just a matter of who has more wins, then its not a war game, its about how well you can collect your resources game.  I don't know about other people, but I think that would be more colony management than anything else.

A survival game?  If we are talking about real survival with bleak resources then developing a war machine would end up taking too many resources and the colony would die.  What you would have is just another colony management game.  OP2 is NOT a survival game.  Even at the hard difficulties I still seem to manage to collect enough ore to do what I want.  A survival game is about resource MANAGEMENT and OP2 really isn't about that.  I can get ore just fine.  You want a survival game then you need more than a backstory saying the air is toxic.  A real survival game would have making your next unit is a serious decision that could be disastrous.

And finally, do you know what play balancing is?

[Freeza-CII]

want to say that i need to READ (put that in fancy italics and stick it) every thing or maybe you didnt realize i was refering to what you said TH300 said

Who ever has the most units my ass.  I dont believe in that but because so many people like like that no matter what maxing out there unit limit you have to do the same thing or be over come by the swarm effect.  I know what A small squad of units can do i have killed people with them.  Plus there are people that use the Flares and Novas usually 1 at a time.  doesnt seems like Massive amounts of units.  But thats all its going to come down to is the massive unit numbers because a large battle is some thing that cant be avoided on some maps and some players because you have to punch through there defences and still have enough units to kill any thing in sight.

I do read things in here and over there.  And I am a god damn human i can get things wrong.  But From what i read here is every one want to "pimp there lynx out" so it will be faster or have more armor with some building Thus Adding more and more Management Dont you see it.  Want to keep adding more buildings and research for all this stuff and you end up doing nothing but research.  And Yes it takes time to do that and every ones would have the same basic upgrade.  But when it comes down to it do you really thing the scientists that have been trained all exactly the same and have all the same knowledge would have come up with the weapons and vecs that would be to top specs.  Alot of this add on crap to make the units faster to fire faster or target faster or have more armor it just takes away from the game because at first it would just cause a major imbalance even in a eden vs eden.  And Then people would just find the pattern that makes a UBER unit and then every thing else become unused.  All improvements for the vecs and building is done in the research not some building you would have to drag all the vecs to and then add what ever you wanted to them.  Making a 2 step tango a 7 step line dance.

Yes it is survival your enemy has units and ore isnt that scarce as you can see in op2 .  (Making the ore realistic would have been a very bad idea)  Your in a new place and there is one objective to kill off your enemy Given that the game style is LOS Land Rush and so on.  War is survival if you have the resources you build if you dont you cant that is how it is you have to build more domes to make the food and do what management is there to keep the colony running and getting the rare and new vecs and there weapons all located in the Vec Fac Struct Fac and the Labs.

game balancing couldnt care what that is.  I dont care what that is your just pulling that out to smack me down and make me look noobish.  Making the game some what fair and still RTS not some lets sit around and research a bunch of stuff to make  a laser lynx the uber unit or move it to some garage like building because every one fears the thor.

I dont want to hear any s*** about the Thor Sure they cant make some damn good chaos but so can a EMP missile and a group of RPG and ESG lynx.

[croxis]

My god you are taking this way, way too personally.  Its just a game, sheesh.

Let me make something clear.  This game is not designed by committee.  It is not designed by democratic votes.  The people making this game could have just as easily said that they are going to do their own thing and listen to no one.  What they are is looking for ideas, seeing what people put out.  Even then it will be up to them(italics are used to emphasize a very specific point an author is trying to make.  FYI) on what they want to add and how to implement.  You or I could type up a full blown 200 page document and they are under no obligation to even take a glance at it.

When I asked you if you knew what game balance was, it was not to make you look n00bish, although I do see that they way it was worded it can be interpreted as passive-aggressive.  I seriously wanted to know what you knew so i knew how to explain it to you.  Heck you probably knwo what it is already just not the name for it.  

Playbalancing is making sure everything plays as intended.  It makes sure thing are not too fast, or too slow, or too weak, or too strong.  In your rant almost every, single thing you said would not even be a problem if the game was balanced.  Unbalanced games are not fun because the inbalances are exploited by the players.  I have no idea what you ment by ubder fast units rushing the CC and blowing it up.  A balanced game would not have that.  In all actuallity a balanced game would have No 0 null zilch uber end all units.  I gurentee you Sierra spent HOURS with just a basic microwave and a laser unit just shooting each other, making sure the stats, both the numbers we can see and both the numbers invisible to the player but still computed in the game, are balanced.


OK now to address the game points.

I hate micromanagement.  hate hate hate.  Maybe even more than you.  Its why I'm never any good at the civilization series because I don't babysit all my cities maximizing the resources.  I rather make more general decisions (should I build another city or a warrior, etc etc).  This idea of custom built units could be done poorly and micromanaged to oblivion with 10 different slots and 500 kabillion combenations each.  Hell that wouldn't be fun in a turn based game.  SMAC had 6, I brought it down to three.  There should be usable predesigns for the lasy or if a unit is just needed right then and now.  The interface will have a lot to do with hwo successful it would be - off the the side and not blocking the screen when its open.

I don't want it to be a micromanage nightmare, and you are right I might be taking the specilization too far.  Some of the things I thougth about already, such as having to upgrade units.  Should be automatic, could repair units do it in the field, could there just be a batch command that a single click would tell all the units to go to a garage and switch to this component selected from a dropdown menu.  Just because there are problems with specific points of an idea doesn't mean the entire thing is invalid (only exception might be alien species ).

Part of it is I'm putting the ideas together in context with one another.  How will this feature work with that feature.  Something big, like how reasearch is handled and how units are managed in the game engine will have drastic effect on what ideas will work and what wont.  Right now I saw from the previous thread that custom building units is a popular idea and that I wasn't the first to suggest it.  Custom units is a very very general feature that could be implimented in a lot of different ways, depending on how other game mechanics work.  I'm going off of my reasearch idea from the general thread, there there are indipendant branches (like 4-10, who knows) that bring different strengths and weaknesses to the player.  In that my suggestion was that in a standard multiplayer match a player would reach the end of maybe two if they just focused on those two strands.  However it would allow for epic single player games if someone wanted to play it all.

If someoen were to say "I'm thinking this and this idea assuming research is done like this" (and I am only using research as an example, it could be any game mechanic of your choice, same with the thor, its just an example, nothing more.  no need to get so upset about it)  then I will work in the context of the assumption.  Some ideas are great with once set of premis, and not so good with another.

The reason for the pimping is that it makes the game a bit deeper and why I suggested only one augmentation slot.  Someone could put on the extra speed, but they loose out on putting on extra armor, or turret speed, and so on.  For every add on, for every tech specialty, there should be at least TWO ways to counteract it.  If its just one then its a simple player 1 does this and player 2 does that - so if the player is reacting to another at least they still can choose the option that works best for their play style and the game cerumstance at the time.

And finally.  Dude.  none of this is personal.  I'm not attacking you, or the team, or nayone else.  You HAVE raised valid points here and other threads.  Pointing out weaknesses in the ideas will only make them stronger or to be dropped.  But you have to remeber that in turn people will respond and defend their idea.

I feel that OP2 was lacking on both size, colony and war and, from my experiance in following game development and discussing game dev, just adding more units and weapons and buildings and reasearch, in and of itself, wont make a game better, its just more of the same.  I know this idea is new to the game and it would not be like by some just for that reason alone.  Because its new there isn't too much of a basis to go off of.  I'm trying to make things work for everyone of many playing styles.  I think the best way to manage the problem is improve both and find a way where a war focused player and a colony focused player are playing their games and find a balanced way to balance both war and non-war victories in the same game.

I'm on your side.

[Chandler]

Ok. Everyone take a deep breath, we're all friends here.

I agree with both Freeza's and Croxis points - Freeza doensn't want to add customisation for balance and complexity, but Croxis want's to add it for strategy and variety (sorry if I got this wrong guys).

Now - the way I see it, if this is done right - you CAN'T make a EAFSW by customisation - add more speed, lose armour - add weapon power, lose ROF, etc, etc. i.e - make a RPG that fires at twice the speed, but half the damage = same as normal RPG. Add different customisations to give your units a DIFFERENT edge in battle, not an edge BETTER than your opponent.

Some people like rush tactics (lynx), some like gathered fist tacts (thors), and some like balanced tactics (panthers).

Sure, make fast Supernovas, but try to get them through my rapid fire EMPs, until you come with your extended range RPGs.

Get the point? Sure, you can make something better than your opponents, but then they'll counteract you - because where you've made your unit strong in one area, it WILL be weak in another...

Complex? You don't HAVE to design your own units - you get the stock standard designs by default. If you want, have customisation as a ON/OFF OPTION. WZ2100 designs weren't complex: Choose a chassis, choose a transport, choose a weapon, choose a mod, etc. Click about 5 times, either leave the default name or give it your own, and hit save. If you want, give players the option of making designs OUT OF GAME, like suggested by TH300.

Now everyone go an play Warzone 2100 and tell me about this END ALL FINAL SOLUTION WEAPON - because I want to know about.

If I got something wrong in here - feel free to point it. Just don't bite my head off. (Remember, we're all friends here.)

Oh, and don't Tiger Thor rush me, thats NOOB :lol:  

[croxis]

More or less.  The pimping (for some reason that phrase is just funny this time of night) is to give an edge and also to support more use of unit combenations that Freeza pointed out.  The powerful augmenations would actually be the weaponslot (such as very strong sensor systems), so the vehicle has to be defended.  If yuo are depending on that super sensor and the other player kills it well the tables sure did turn there!


I really like the unit design out of game, but if its something as simple as three drop down menus that you select from and a build and save button....

Another problem is that as the number of branches in the tech tree goes up (assuming it does branch of course) the usefulness of designing a unit out of game goes down as that tech combination might not come up and then it might be better to reduce the branch numbers.

Also, just because an idea is tried in game doesn't mean it will be in the final product either.  If something just doesn't work then the code can just be commented out and something else can be used in stead.

[Freeza-CII]

There is a patern to how things are now with all this customzation there will just be the pattern that emergs of the best you vec you can get.  And if you keep the style of op2 research you cant go back and make the Defensive units into the Attack units.  The thing about a weapon like the lynx is it can be used in few ways.  EMP your defensive or Supression Laser are fast dont hurt much unless in groups (Swarm effect) same with Micros.  RPG and Rails are pretty much attack and destructive defence.  ACID falls under title of Flail It can hurt alot and even has the swarm effect but its the only self damge weapon there is.  ESG a weapon that only kills Vecs.  The ESG is just as good as the ACID and the THOR even tho it lacks the Monsterous destructive power a thor has.  ESG is a weapon that requires more manuvers then slamming head on into other units Like most of the other weapons except the ACID and Sticky.  THOR is a Club you just bash the hell out of the enemy with it.  But the Thor its self can be Defensive as it does have a long range of fire and its quite nasty but it has very little area effect the the Sticky Acid and ESG have.  Using more tactics rather then just bashing the vecs into each other is the solution not making these units go faster or these units fire faster or have more power behind the shot.

That is how I see it.  I defeated a superior enemy once with a few 1 thor and a hand full of laser by moving the units the way I wanted them.