suggestion

[kirby]

yeah... like no random deaths, colonists only die when the structure they were in explodes, colonists dont die at all...
its true that the point of op2 was to survive and thrive, but how often does that idea actually reflect in the multiplayer? i think having options online for colonist deaths would let people decide for themselves wether they want to focus on either survival or war.  

[ZeusBD]

So I think that most people want a choice. Yes those variables could be interesting, but a lot of people just want to build up a colony and kill people, they don't want to have to worry about building houses and building recreation facilities and such, it'll take away too much from the multiplayer experience.

[zeritou]

never thought this topic would get so long....

im now going to go with the idea of options

[knux]

No I'm not getting rid of colonists dying, just not as often. This will keep the balance of realism that some people want and the ease of multiplay that some people want.

[kirby]

Actually, now that i think about op2 a little more, there was a colonist death problem that i had an issue with.
Say you have your main colony, and like 50 miles away you have a totally seperate mining colony. For some reason, a fleet of thor's hammer tigers and totally waste it. Now guess what? everybody in your colony is still alive, mysteriously transported to your cc 50 miles away.

I have a little problem with this. The game does has evac transports, but you never have to use them. I personally think that one should have to to load colonists onto evac transports when moving people to another area or setting up a new colony, and maybe even be able to transfer them to other players. This would make alot more sense than how op2 works now, and i think it would make the game more interesting.

just a thought...
 

[TH300]

It's the same with resource-transfer between different locations: Metals are even transferred if the colonies are divided by a stream of lava.

But I don't know if it'd really be better to change this, bcz. gaming could be made too complicated.

[ZeusBD]

Yes it is true, all of these things would have made it more realistic, but it also would have made it a whole lot less fun. I like the fact that you could just build and kill and not have to worry stuff like that.

[Phantom]

Yes, it would be too complicated.

Just say that the colonists escaped in evacuation pods upon the point of explosion of a building, and land at the new cc.

As with rescources, I really thought that was wierd also.

Anyways,
I think you should be able to turn off colonists in multiplayer, but only on certain conditions:

Deathmatch: No Colonists
Space Race/Greed: Colonists

I think that this would add, not detract, from the multiplayer ascpect of op3.

[kirby]

I agree that the ore thing might be a bad idea to change, that might end up making the game slower and a tad difficult. However, I think having to manually transfer colonists might make it more interesting.
Or, perhaps, this could be a standard thing for the single-player missions and an option for the multiplayer... I would at least like to see the option of transfering colonists between players, it would seriously improve the whole teamwork aspect of allied multiplayer games.

[TH300]

But the player will have to risk to have too few colonists either in the main colony or in an outpost. This will influence the game the more the bigger the distance between both locations is and therefore make having two seperated colonies a hard job.

Maybe that's what you intended, but other parts of the game would have to be easier then.

[Jgamer]

well...
you could make these as option in the game...
better, make these options in patches

[kirby]

knux already said that he was going to cut back on the colonist death rate, so theres one point that would kinda balance out the difficulty. The vecs we are talking about in the air units thread would also make it easier to relocate colonists...
so theres two things that would make things easier in op3, anything else?

[TH300]

knux already said that he was going to cut back on the colonist death rate, so theres one point that would kinda balance out the difficulty. The vecs we are talking about in the air units thread would also make it easier to relocate colonists...
so theres two things that would make things easier in op3, anything else?

If there will be air-untis (I still don't support them) it'll be ok. In fact I don't know if the result would be better or worse.

And I also want the Colonists-part to be a main part in op3. There shouldn't be too many and too different types of combat-units.

[ttamdude]

No, the OP2 way is the best way, it is already random to a degree... Outpost 2 had an algorithom to determan every thing (eg. overcrouding, morale, children, even dieing increased the chances of dieing (stress factor)) I loved the realism that brought to the game... i do agree however that there should be an option to do a "morale steady" thing... in OP2 all you had to do was supply food and the collonists wouldnt die off... I honestly dont think thats too much to ask from a player... it makes it so much more realistic that way


((( Did i totally miss the discusion? i only looked at the first page... )))

also... why am i the only one with a warn meter? what the hell is that?
--xfir answered this via PM as to prevent off-topic posts.

[Phantom]

Yes I do think that the op2 colonist algorithem is very accurate, however there should be an option (Extra, Extra Easy or something) that should have a steady moral.

[Amrazek]

It seems that you all want a direct clone of OP2, with a few minor changes here and there.  Keep in mind that the player base for this game was somewhat poor because of the magical phrase "just hurry up and wait" which was used in nearly every review I've read about OP2.  Perhaps some other things should be changed (such as speeding up colony development or having some kind of balanced combat system) to attract new players.  Know that little things like driving colonists to a new base and managing ores separated by lava adds to micromanagement, which (IMO) is exactly what killed Outpost 2.

Just my $.02  
-Amrazek

[ZeusBD]

I like that in OP2 with morale steady, all you had to build was agridomes, and if you wanted you could build hosptial's to keep them alive longer. Now I would support an option to not only have morale steady, but at what level to have morale steady at. Like you could set it to fair or excellent or whatever before the game started.

Also, I liked that the game came with such a variety of maps. Like you could either choose Pie for a real quick game usually or choose a worl map and have the game take forever.

[TH300]

It seems that you all want a direct clone of OP2, with a few minor changes here and there.  Keep in mind that the player base for this game was somewhat poor because of the magical phrase "just hurry up and wait" which was used in nearly every review I've read about OP2.  Perhaps some other things should be changed (such as speeding up colony development or having some kind of balanced combat system) to attract new players.  Know that little things like driving colonists to a new base and managing ores separated by lava adds to micromanagement, which (IMO) is exactly what killed Outpost 2.

Just my $.02  
-Amrazek

I don't want a clone of Outpost 2, but I also don't want a game, that's too different from it. The reviews are, in my mind, totally wrong. If you play at speed 10, there'll hardly be a moment, in which you have nothing to do.

And micromanangement is excatly what makes op2 good, it's the slight difference, which makes op2 better than other RTS games.

[Jgamer]

well...
The micromanangement is what attracted all the people here in playing op2 so i guess it's quite good too.
The awnser to this ploblem could be an button to turn micromanangement on or off.
That should satisfy greeks and trojans here

[kirby]

Jgamer Posted on Apr 16 2004, 04:45 PM
  well...
The micromanangement is what attracted all the people here in playing op2 so i guess it's quite good too.
The awnser to this ploblem could be an button to turn micromanangement on or off.
That should satisfy greeks and trojans here 

huh? what do you mean "turn micromanagement off"?

And personally, i believe that ttamdude is right in saying that the system op2 used to kill off colonists was well thought, and i think if we want to make colonists die less in op3, i suggest using something similar and just slowing its affects down a tad.

[Jgamer]

i mean in general outlines, like making buildings use no colonists and research use no scientists at all, like in other RTS games like C&C

[knux]

Well I couldn't turn the micromanagement off. That means a total rewrite of the game and a different set of rules running in the background. That would be totally, unrealistic.

I will say that the medical centres have been scrapped and morale only affects production and research. If morale does drop to very low levels then the population may stop growing and the death rate may rise slightly but the people dying will be mainly controlled by random events.

What I am using the population for is unit control. For what will stop you amassing massive amounts of units super quick?
1. Some games have slow production
2. Some have limited resources
3. Some have high cost units
4. Some have slow resource collection
5. Some have support structures required for multiple units.

I am having:
1. Infinite resources
2. Support structures

I may include more depending on feedback from game users.
 

[ttamdude]

infanate resources? what do you mean by that? do you mean no mines? no rare ore? no sending your servayor to see what kind of mine? no rush for the three-bar? no... that will kill the game... there has to be some form of gathering resources and op2 did it right... maybe a way to cut out having to move the trucks and things... like you build a pipe or something... i dont know...

[Jgamer]

by that he ment that mines wouldn't loose all resources.
Like this:
In warcraft you gold mine had only about 1000000 gold and after you mined it all it sort of like selfdestructed
In outpost you rare ore mine with 1 bar has 100 ore but can be mined till you have 15654621654842548218 rare ore out that single mine

[TH300]

What I am using the population for is unit control. For what will stop you amassing massive amounts of units super quick?
1. Some games have slow production
2. Some have limited resources
3. Some have high cost units
4. Some have slow resource collection
5. Some have support structures required for multiple units.

I am having:
1. Infinite resources
2. Support structures

I may include more depending on feedback from game users.

no bad ideas, but be careful with such things. If different players have different conditions, there's a danger for the game to become unrealistic.

And it should of course depend on the difficulty, how much you're restricted.