Avestron wrote:No - I figure c++ will be a good foundation for myself - and am hoping it'll be relatively simple to move to c# (c89?) later.
Hence why I refer to everything as ramblings now ^_~
Everybody learns differently, no doubt about it.
WZ is deved in C (specifically, the 1989 standard). C first appeared in 1972.
C++ first appeared 1983 and was influenced by C with some significant differences I'm not gonna get into. Both were developed at Bell Labs. (As was UNIX. What would the software landscape look like today if you removed Ma Bell from the equation. )
C# was deved by Microsoft, first appeared in 2001, and was influenced by C++.
About 30 years seperate C and C#.... among many other things.
That's the nature of my ramblings.
My understanding / learning followed the historical developement of the languages themselves because of WZ being deved in C and then more recent games being deved in C++ ..... and, lastly, C# because - well it don't matter really.
Avestron wrote:
1 - Traffic Jam Management - When the AI recognizes that a cluster of units have been actively moving but have not actually achieved any distance in a pre-allocated amount of time, it goes into scatter management.
As the name suggests it involves taking the center of the traffic jam and assigning each traffic jam participant to individually scatter to a pre-allocated matrix, outer models first.
Once scatter action is completed then the units are re-assigned their task, repeated use should result in shuffling.
Why not avoiding the jam at the first place ? Teaching the A* algorithm about right-side movements and minimal vital space to move would solve the problems we encounter now most of the time
OK - I simply didn't go anywhere with this so I'll just presume that I 'don't have it' and will hence describe the WarZone variant that I had in mind:
I am not done here but got a little tired - will continue/ edit this post later.
A different balance.
This would have been a variant where all vehicles generated has a stockpile of ammunition. This ammunition is depleted as the unit spends time fighting the enemy and can deplete, leaving a vehicle without a means of fighting.
A further layer of customization.
Further to the usual three levels of vehicle customization (body, propulsion and weapon), a further level called the 'feature' is included. This feature can include self-repair, extra armour, ammunition cache, countermeasures and more. installed petitely into the model and generally situated between the turret and the body.
The replenishables cycle:
Unlike present WZ2100 this variant would have a new structure included into the game called a refitting facility. In this facility vehicles may return and be refueled and rearmed as required (similar to the repair facility repairing)
Limited capability of such would be added into the Headquarters building - inefficient but better than nothing. Further technological structures researchable would be inserted at points prior to the repair facility, namely the 'refueling station' and the 'arms depot'.
Other than this there would be another dimension to improve friendliness. In building one's base one also creates a zone of influence, which may be automatically sprawled from base structures as well as artificially constructed and expanded outwards.
Within such a zone vehicles would find that their fuel and ammo consumption is reduced by a factor, expanding their range of effectiveness.
/\/\/\
Consequences of zeroing out are predictable:
_HP_ = Destruction
Fuel = Slowed to a crawl, VTOLS would crash to the ground and take damage, still able to crawl
Ammo = Inability to engage in combat
/\/\/\
Further to this special vehicles may also be created to serve as mobile arms and fuel deposits. Such vehicles could be particularly essential to cyborgs as their propulsion method can make their ammo loads somewhat low. They are presumed to have the exact right type of munitions to hand and are presumed to return for restock with a bunch of non-useful munitions still on board.
The amount of ammunition that any vehicle can hold is related to the body's power output, the propulsion modifier, the expected max weight of the vehicle and the weight of the round. In this way one would expect a lot less light cannon rounds to fit into a vehicle than machine gun rounds (but that such light cannon rounds would pack a much bigger punch).
/\/\/\/\/\
The Civilian Dimension
The premise of WZ2100 is that survivors of a near-apocalyptic event are trying to get back on their feet. To do so they need to compete with other survivors for resources and competition comes in the form of war.
It would be nice if the landscape could ever so slowly regenerate with semi-transparent foliage. Bushes, trees, wild-life, the odd shack of a straggler trying to make a living, a small farm here and there.
It would also be cool if natural disasters like tremours, tornados, storms and fires could very rarely hit as an additional challenge.
The behaviour of weapons:
Machine guns
Accuracy moderate with circumstantial boosts in the event of short range and/or previous round being a hit. This would result in a fire flow that is more true to life, where a hit is more likely to be followed up by another hit.
It would also be nice if, besides the sound of the weapon being fired, there were also a sound for the weapon connecting or missing.
In terms of ammo, such rounds would be compact and relatively light and so most vehicles should be able to hold a respectable number of rounds on board. Even VTOLS.
Rockets & Guided Missiles
In the case of missiles featuring some form of guidance, I would have liked to see high damage potential balanced by liability to a number of countermeasures such as chaff, flares, counterfire and the like.
Cannons, Gauss, Mortars and Howitzers
It would be nice if misses generate clouds of smoke, fog or dust.
Increased lethality to borgs moving in the open wouldn't hurt.
Energy Weapons
It would be interesting if flashlights generated a steady beam of fire while bestowing damage gradually over time.
By the same measure it would be interesting if the Satelite Laser also bestowed its destructive energy over a 3 second period and additionally inflicted burn.
Last edited by Avestron on 28 Oct 2012, 08:21, edited 1 time in total.
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