Multi-planar combat in skirmish

[Kharos]

Hey guys, remember how you used to have to fight battles in campaign by making units, loading them onto a transport and flying them to the map you were on?

How about that in Skirmish? There would be 2 or more maps and you could set up a main base at a landing site on any map, but a central base on only one map. If you could battle your way to the enemy's landing site, you can then land troops inside or just outside of the enemy base. It would give an extra strategic element, too - defending on multiple fronts would be more realistic than on one tiny map. As technology improves, so the scale of wars will grow.

[lav_coyote25]

ill bet that the coding for what you want to do is way over and above what the devs could manage with the existing code structure.... it sounds awesome. i think i asked about that years ago, before the source release... geez time flys!!

[LZ compromised]

The closest to what you say I can think of is a mini-campaign sequence where you do a number of missions on two maps. Skirmish is like campaign anyway in that you only play against the AI. Even if multi-map game would be supported (and I can't even imagine how much code would have to be rewritten for that), it's still easier with a sequence of single-map games.

In this case, all the power to you, Kharos, make it happen.

[coppercore]

That is a cool idea. Only issue is I'm sure you couldn't do that very easily at all. Sounds like one hell of a large rewrite on the coding side of things.

However, you can get something close to that. Somewhere around here (I think) there is a mod that will change the cyborg transport into a full blown regular one that can hold 10 tanks. Anyone remember where that mod was?

[Zombie]

I was just thinking about this the other day, I think it'd be a really cool idea.
I was thinking of an actual method on how to do this (if wz follows the client-server model): each 'map' could be a seperate server, each with their local data on what's going on, and when someone departs one server in a dropship, the server refers the client to the ip of the server running the map they're going to, and tells that server that a client with x information is going to join and that they have y units. x client switches to the other running map and the server knows that he expects to have 'y' set of units. Calling for reinforcements might just work by the servers inter-communicating.

A cool thing to add to this, at the same time, would be multiple commanders on the same 'team', so you can have someone managing the main team base on one map, while someone goes out to take on the main base of the other team on another map. A big problem I can see, though, is that a 'team' might fill their home level with archangel missiles and sam sites (as well as sensors), instantly making a siege impossible. However, if no oil resource points existed in the home base area (ie. where you are able to build factories, and where your commanders take off from) and were sparsely deployed in other maps, that the teams have to fight over, I think it'd minimize the risk of teams being able to take such measures. especially if the home base maps were as big (if not the same maps as) as the final sizes of the home base maps from the campaign.

Essentially you could take something like this and very easily turn it into a team vs team campaign, where you fight for artifacts and the like. It'd be very interesting, but I thought it should probably be a mod seeing as it is a grand departure from what warzone is today.

[zamaszysty]

Actualy there is a simple... a REALLY SIMPLE way to make this work! It would only require adding new class ob tiles to a map, that are like "Super cliffs", so they would block not only bround units but also VTOL (NOT including transporters). This way players would just build their bases in separate zoves of the map, where only they can be (simple AA gun set would disable drops of units from base to base, or additional "air wall" terrain class), and would fight on a zone to drop in.

To make this system operational we would need:

- "All unit type blocking" terrain type that would only let transporters through.

- Addidtional feature to add "sectors" on the map AND minimap (that second one is User Interface feature only, right?). Those could be marked by different color boxes on the map, or some other way (different colored frames?). Propably this should be implemented in both GAME itself and EDITOR aswell. I think in editor there should be mechanism like:

Code: Select all

CreateSector 
--> Set
    --> Sector Coordinates
    --> Sector Number (or "name")
--> Player permissions
    --> Acces a zone.
    --> Build in a zone.
    --> Have view on a zone.

With this structure there is a whole "Create sector" option in the menu. Set section is for creating sectors (only quadrangle shaped) starting in (X1:Y1) and ending in (X2:Y2), and of course naming out sectors for easier editing in the next tab. The last tab is "Player permissions" where we could set if a player can do specific things in a zone. Maybe there would be a "peace" setting zone to, where players could hide their last builder while knowing their allies are comming with help.

Propably adding "zone controll panel" to diplomacy in multiplayer game would be an interesting option, and so we would have games on "diplomacy" or "for fun" (like a labirynth map where opening one zone closes another, and players have to make it from one end to another by cooperation)

- Third element needed would be camera lock, so switching between zones would seem like they are separate maps. This way we get that "campaign effect"

I hope You guys like my idea, because i think it's much more doable than other posted here before. DEVS, could You tell me if this would be an option to start works on such system added to the game? This would create SOOOOO many possible ways to make maps that are some of those "UMS" in starcraft or other bery custom in warcraft. Indeed it would make editor a bit more not only an editor but also a modding tool

[Rman Virgil]

Actualy there is a simple... a REALLY SIMPLE way to make this work!.....

Very cool. Also very much in the spirit of WZ Creator's, Pumpkin Studios, open-ended design intent to evolve game play.... a spirit and intent shared by the folks that worked on the game between 1999 till early 2005 - a few months after liberation in 2004. The intent & focus since those days has been mostly resident in other domains of dev. (cross-platform, GFX closer to current norms, bug-fixes, etc..) If game play evolution is ever taken up seriously on a code level again I don't see it in the foreseeable future so it may be more viable to think in terms of what can be done via Mod & Scripting implementations if you wanna see things of this nature a reality anytime soon. That is unless you have the werewithall, or external resources, to tackle the necessary source changes & are prepared to fork if you go public..

- Regards, RV
.

[Terminator]

Hey guys, remember how you used to have to fight battles in campaign by making units, loading them onto a transport and flying them to the map you were on?

How about that in Skirmish? There would be 2 or more maps and you could set up a main base at a landing site on any map, but a central base on only one map. If you could battle your way to the enemy's landing site, you can then land troops inside or just outside of the enemy base. It would give an extra strategic element, too - defending on multiple fronts would be more realistic than on one tiny map. As technology improves, so the scale of wars will grow.

As far As I can tell this feature could be done using wz_scripts I think. But there are no much devs-power to handle this. they usually work on important tasks. But those who have a free time always can check out this page & start working on this.

As for zamaszysty idea - everything is possible. but not in this project, at least not for now I think.

[coppercore]

Actualy there is a simple... a REALLY SIMPLE way to make this work! It would only require adding new class ob tiles to a map, that are like "Super cliffs", so they would block not only bround units but also VTOL (NOT including transporters). This way players would just build their bases in separate zoves of the map, where only they can be (simple AA gun set would disable drops of units from base to base, or additional "air wall" terrain class), and would fight on a zone to drop in.

To make this system operational we would need:

- "All unit type blocking" terrain type that would only let transporters through.

- Addidtional feature to add "sectors" on the map AND minimap (that second one is User Interface feature only, right?). Those could be marked by different color boxes on the map, or some other way (different colored frames?). Propably this should be implemented in both GAME itself and EDITOR aswell. I think in editor there should be mechanism like:

Code: Select all

CreateSector 
--> Set
    --> Sector Coordinates
    --> Sector Number (or "name")
--> Player permissions
    --> Acces a zone.
    --> Build in a zone.
    --> Have view on a zone.

With this structure there is a whole "Create sector" option in the menu. Set section is for creating sectors (only quadrangle shaped) starting in (X1:Y1) and ending in (X2:Y2), and of course naming out sectors for easier editing in the next tab. The last tab is "Player permissions" where we could set if a player can do specific things in a zone. Maybe there would be a "peace" setting zone to, where players could hide their last builder while knowing their allies are comming with help.

Propably adding "zone controll panel" to diplomacy in multiplayer game would be an interesting option, and so we would have games on "diplomacy" or "for fun" (like a labirynth map where opening one zone closes another, and players have to make it from one end to another by cooperation)

- Third element needed would be camera lock, so switching between zones would seem like they are separate maps. This way we get that "campaign effect"

I hope You guys like my idea, because i think it's much more doable than other posted here before. DEVS, could You tell me if this would be an option to start works on such system added to the game? This would create SOOOOO many possible ways to make maps that are some of those "UMS" in starcraft or other bery custom in warcraft. Indeed it would make editor a bit more not only an editor but also a modding tool

You're a genius! That would probably take alot less work than the other method we were talking about, but I fear you'd end up running into a maximum map size + possible issues with having like 600+ units all roaming different parts of a map. It could be done though.

[Zombie]

I think if you used zamaszysty's method you would definitely require very low power maps, because of structure caps, as well as the overall unit cap that occurs (there is a maximum total number of units that everyone can have on a specific map). It's a good solution, though, and probably better because it wouldn't require a rewrite of any code.

[Per]

Another way would be to make the existing scroll limits system configurable per-player. This is how a similar effect is created for campaign. Adding a tile type that blocks VTOL would be very simple from the perspective of the core game mechanics (with which I am most familiar), but I am not sure how simple it would be to add to the map loading and map editor, especially in master where there is a ton of hacks of keep the new map rendering compatible with existing maps.