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Battlefront.com and TBG Software announce new game! DropTeam!


Madmatt

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Originally posted by Private Bluebottle:

I defy anybody to simulate the tactics which are possible under CM, with a RTS game.

Get ready to be defied then... smile.gif

Originally posted by Private Bluebottle:

Unless you have better than average reactions and hand-eye coordination, it will be impossible to control more than a small handful of vehicles/infantry (are infantry included in the game?) working on wide-ranging axis, attempting multiple maneavoures.

This is why its TEAM BASED the best way to play is over a network or Internet with lots of others people. One team against the other. Each person gets a unit of there own to control, and there can be additional bots if needed. The bots can be controlled individually by the team members if needed, or the AI can be left to its own choices, or the Team Commander can be the sole director of the bots. The team commander can give orders for the other team members to follow.

This is more like real combat than ever, you can plan a strategy before you start the game like generals do before a battle. You then are under the gun to execute this strategy and make changes to it under more real battle conditions because you have to make the decisions on the spot. The commanders in a battle can't say "Okay you German scum, we need to stop everything for a few hours while we think about what you have done and devise a counter for it, so please don't shoot at us." This is not realistic. Realistic is having the commander make these decisions while he and his men are being shot at, and then to give orders to real people and have them execute them the best they can. This is how DropTeam works at its best.

DropTeam is more than a Real Time Strategy game, its more of a Real Time Combat Simulator game. In standalone mode it can be very much like a typical RTS game, but when you bring in teams with real people over the a network or Internet you change the game drastically into a RTCS game.

-Creepy

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Develop some infantry for the game!

I hope the game will include infantry at some point. The units would be very useful in both offense and defense and for operating in "no-go" terrain for armored vehicles.

Rather than using the "Starship Troopers" model, I recommend a combination of the US Army's "future warrior" program with some current tech being used by today's US soldiers and Marines. The "future land warrior" of 2025 will have camoflage that changes with the soldiers surroundings (an idea spawned by the Predator movie), a uniform that protects the soldier from Chem/Bio/Rad (just add-in zero-G/no atmosphere capablity), a type of exoskeleton giving increased speed, strength, and endurance, and very powerful weapons. In addition, the helmet will have a heads up display showing key information and be connected to a network for sharing information. This kind of infantry is in development now and definetly has a place in this game. Check out this link:

www.natick.army.mil/soldier/wsit/content.htm

The first advantage of infantry would be that they would be invisible from sensors once they dismounted from their vehicles or dropships. Thus they could occupy terrain and establish killzones and fire sacs while hidden. The squads would have automatic weapons and grenade launchers capable of taking out light vehicles and also have a sniper capablity for eliminating crew members and taking out key equipment (such as a tank's thermal sight) from a distance, and a limited number of anti-tank rockets, and fire-and-forget anti-tank missles, similar to the current AT-4 rocket (or RPG) and the Javelin fire and forget guided missle. Each squad would should also have the ablility to act as observers to provide battlefield reconnaissance as well as call indirect fire, such as artillery and mortars on spotted enemy units.

Good infantry is a very powerful player on the modern battlefield and will continue to be a key part of any combined arms team. Elite formations, such as Marines and paratroopers will always have a place as both initial assault forces and supporting thier mech brothers in arms in the land campaign. I think the game would benefit greatly from including infantry into the tactical play.

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Science fiction might not have taken place, but that doesn't mean that it cannot be simulated. SCIENCE fiction is still based on scientific knowledge, and there is every reason to believe that the same physical rules that we know now will still exist in the future. In fact, one of the fundamental assumptions of science as we know it is that it's universal, i.e. that it applies anywhere in the universe just as it does on earth, provided that the conditions are the same.

So a Sci-Fi simulation doesn't have to invent hit points for example to be Sci-Fi. Instead (and much more intriguing if you ask me) is to assume that the same physical laws that we know now still apply. What's worse is that some games totally do away with laws that we do know now (and are pretty certain they won't change) in order to create the illusion of Sci-Fi (when really they drop the Sci part and only do Fiction).

Uhh... ehm... well, look at that, it's philosophic Saturday or somefink... smile.gif

Martin

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Originally posted by Creepy Gnome:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Private Bluebottle:

I defy anybody to simulate the tactics which are possible under CM, with a RTS game.

Get ready to be defied then... smile.gif

Originally posted by Private Bluebottle:

Unless you have better than average reactions and hand-eye coordination, it will be impossible to control more than a small handful of vehicles/infantry (are infantry included in the game?) working on wide-ranging axis, attempting multiple maneavoures.

This is why its TEAM BASED the best way to play is over a network or Internet with lots of others people. One team against the other. Each person gets a unit of there own to control, and there can be additional bots if needed. The bots can be controlled individually by the team members if needed, or the AI can be left to its own choices, or the Team Commander can be the sole director of the bots. The team commander can give orders for the other team members to follow.

This is more like real combat than ever, you can plan a strategy before you start the game like generals do before a battle. You then are under the gun to execute this strategy and make changes to it under more real battle conditions because you have to make the decisions on the spot. The commanders in a battle can't say "Okay you German scum, we need to stop everything for a few hours while we think about what you have done and devise a counter for it, so please don't shoot at us." This is not realistic. Realistic is having the commander make these decisions while he and his men are being shot at, and then to give orders to real people and have them execute them the best they can. This is how DropTeam works at its best.

DropTeam is more than a Real Time Strategy game, its more of a Real Time Combat Simulator game. In standalone mode it can be very much like a typical RTS game, but when you bring in teams with real people over the a network or Internet you change the game drastically into a RTCS game.

-Creepy </font>

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Originally posted by Soddball:

However, in my experience 'sitting down to plan your assault' is a fantasy. You end up in a group with fourteen LEEEERRRRROOOOYYYY JEEENNNNNNKKIIINNNSSSS players. So, actually, it's LESS 'realistic' because the AI can be programmed (to a point) to behave 'realistically' whereas dimwit children are too obsessed with 'frags' to work as a team.

How true. I installed 'America's Army' with high hopes. My expectations were cruelly dashed when I learned that it was the tactical wargame equivalent of watching 6 year olds playing soccer...

There should be servers reserved for grumpy middle-aged men who like to do things properly.

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Well, AA is a free game, and a relatively simple FPS. Dropteam might be able to attract better players.

Also, AA has some problems because it is played on relatively small maps with fixed missions. One of those problems (a very normal one) is that there are a small number of options to use in each map, and all experienced players know them, so it becomes routine and winning is not decided by tactics (everyone already knows all the viable tactics for every map) but mouse skills. Also, there is some almost-cheating behaviour (not really going outside of what the game allows, but not something that would happen in real life), like the grenade launchers that memorize exactly how they need to aim to get a grenade from their spawn to the enemy spawn in the first five seconds of the game.

As Dropteam will probably have much bigger maps, I guess it would have more variety.

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...whereas dimwit children are too obsessed with 'frags' to work as a team.
Yes, this can sometimes be a problem when playing on public servers, Soddball, but you can always play your own game on your own LAN against an opponent who you personally like to play with. You can play head-to-head, with plenty of AI players on each of your teams that you both give orders to, in addition to controlling your own personal units. You can also play this way via Internet, but it sounds like you might like to sit down and play next to other like-minded players, which is perfectly fine.

There are a lot of ways to play DropTeam, and jumping into public games is only one of them.

how BTW do you simulate science-fiction, which by definition hasn't occurred so therefore it cannot be simulated?
Here's the definition of simulation:

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">sim·u·la·tion n. Imitation or representation, as of a potential situation or in experimental testing.</pre>

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