Caseck

Maybe I've watched too many Bruckheimer films... *explosion noise and big fireball explosions...*

Ya' know? The secondary explosions when you kill stuff are kind of weak. I mean... REALLY weak... It would be nice to have some good secondaries. Some nifty debris getting thrown around... Turrets flying off, like old Battlezone... You know, cool job satisfaction type stuff...

I was thinking how on some planets where there's insane wind, it would be interesting...

I agree. I don't miss them here. And our forums are orderly and peaceful *knock on wood.*

I think it'd be very immersive. Really, the mass of wind hitting a big fat tank round isn't going to be nearly the same factor as the little bullets... But it would make that long range sniping more taxing!

I suspect they do... Holy catfish these guys work!

Stick to our target market: Hardcore wargamers. It's just there's not a ton of us, and we're hard to scare up! (And tough to sell to!) Twinks are easier to sell to. But you need flashier graphics, more bugs, and hitpoints instead of armor... And leet sniper rifles with no ballistics in a wind-free environment... *sigh*

On the same note of weight on the chassis, there is also volume to deal with. Ablative armour would tend to be volume as opposed to weight limited. Vehicles should be designed around fitting on a dropship. That basically sets the total volume you have to work with as far as how BIG you can build your vehicles. Logistics dictate. (Just as the M1 Abrams was limited by fitting on a railcar--and maybe bridges had something to do with it as well...)

Excellent! Will do!

It's still going to count towards the load the chassis suspension can carry. You'd have to trade off load somewhere, but it'd be more effective against lasers, less so against projectiles...

Another thought, would be cool to hear wind in game. Especially on those barren planets where you can just picture the wind howling over the broken land. It'd of course, be even cooler if it affected the ballistics and smoke AND you could hear it gusting...

I know, here I am again asking for crazy impossibilities... I'd love to see a mod with $, for purchasing vehicles. All the same, I'd also love to have a screen prior to battle where you can to some degree mod your vehicles. (Again, based on money/resources like guys available...) I think this would be cool in both the multiplayer and campaign modes. When you think about it, the game isn't too far from this, as you have several base chasis, and then differing weapons fits. I'd just like to see it one step further, with the ability to add say, ABLATIVE ARMOR, change ammo loadouts, adding and detracting from the max load the chasis can carry... Of course, I'm still waiting on my pulse-laser tank anyway! But the other thing this could allow, is a campaign-like multiplayer, where you manage a persistant "merc unit" between battles. Vehicles have to be repaired, crewmen recruited/hired, weapons systems procured. I know that opens up a whole lot of other questions, but I live to pester. Of course, anyone could run a "merc-unit" and you could get some cash by playing for someone else's merc unit as well! I know, I'm dreaming... (Friendly fire? You broke it, you bought it!) But never hurts to dream...

Another issue I have with the movement is, when you simply change your arc of fire, the INF guys GET UP and reposition. It'd be cool if to an extent they would just shift their fields of fire. I don't like my guys getting up and moving just because I [shifted my field of fire]. A good wedge formation would be good too... Something a little more offensive than the star, but still covering the flanks. [ September 07, 2006, 05:35 PM: Message edited by: Caseck ]

Back online here for a bit. Just had some fun playing on the server. Was pleased and suprised to see all the patches! Was just playing, and the ground based laser PD was shooting down my RIFLE BULLETS... Like, 2 or more out of a burst... Ahem... A little overpowered methinks... Let's think about the radar cross section of a 10mm bullet for a moment... Infantry teams are a bit odd with only 1 GUN per squad. Should be 1 gun per 3 guys... Max of two guns with 4 guys, and below 4 guys, it should be one gun. (When the gunner dies, the MG/ION should get traded out instead of laying with a dead guy--unless he's blown up or somethin'... Maybe a time penalty to get it back is in order?) This is odd, as is the fact, when the gunner goes down, you effectively LOSE your status as an "ION" or "MG" squad... When you have a full 3 man gun team, the gun should have at least 600rds. (Bare minimum.) Each dead team mate should detract a hundred rounds per gun. I'd rather see true "MG" gun teams, very heavy and no jump capabilities, with at least a 20mm weapon system. Perhaps just 3 guys, to solve the "who's carrying the gun" problem. Why no crawl now for prone inf? DROP PODS: Gotta' be individual! Squad should have individual drop pods. Casualties I can accept on a hot-drop. The whole "All Eggs In One Basket..." Not cool at all... That's like jumping six guys in one parachute! I know it's issues, and you don't want to hear more crap, but I have to speak my peace. Hope I'm not rubbing salt in open wounds... IDEAS! RECON infantry teams, maybe 3 guys who can call in ARTY as command guys would be cool. Very limited on AT and ammo. Good mobility and sneaky. MANPADS and ATGM INF teams would also be cool. Once again, very slow, limited ammo. No jump or very limited ammo. Your game, your pick! Really, I'd love to have a screen where you could pick your infantry squad guys individually... Do you want 6 MG guys? Or ION guys? How about an EW guy and an AT guy?

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Ablative armour.

COOL!

Regardless, mines, sensors, jammers, and infantry should droppable without a dropship...

Whatever it takes... I'm more curious about ION beams... So what we have here is a beam of IONS... Hydrogen Ions I'd assume. Sounds a lot like a plasma gun. Not really a laser at all, which is of course, a beam or concentrated pulse of coherent photons... Both would be affected by atmospheric beam divergence and attenuation, except of course Lasers in a vaccuum. (Which are, as we know, invisible in a vaccuum because of no side-scattered photons.) Plasma/Ion beams actually will have a natural beam divergence unlike lasers, because it's superheated and highly charged material. Now, a plasma gun would require a magenetic bottle to superheat hydrogen into a plasma state. (Where the electrons fly off, and you end up with a bunch of protons and neutrons in a very excited state...) Of course, if you set several powerful enough ION beams together, you could generate a stream of superheated helium (a Fusion beam...) Anyway, the net positive charge on an ION or Plasma beam is the interesting point. It is possible to build an ionized shield or armour to deflect such a beam. (Lasers of course, wouldn't be affected by this at all, but you can tailor ablative armour towards Lasers, the composition of which would depend largely on the frequency of the laser...) Food for thought.

I'd expect it's just easier to do it that way. Otherwise they'd have to articulate all the suspensions on the vehicles... I'd rather have revised lasers than articulated suspensions.

DropTeam:Campaigns Ah, the multiplayer campaign... The dream of gamers everywhere...

My continuing issue is that Dropships are too pleantiful in this game. They should far and away be the most expensive and rare unit in the game, but players get opportunity after opportunity to squander them. Yes, it's nifty how you can sometimes sneak a drop into enemy territory, but it shouldn't pay to lose 5 DropShips, using them as loaded scouts, looking for a safe DZ behind enemy lines... If the decision is made to make GunShips, they have to revisit the arbitrary system of giving the sides set numbers of vehicles... A cash and carry system would penalize overzealous use of these systems...

I agree that hover-tanks would probably be more useful than helicopters. But for that we need anti-grav technology... And then armoured vehicles become virtually indistinguishable from aircraft. Except they're a lot heavier... Gunships today utilize terrain to hide from the enemy. They're just less limited by restrictive terrain than armoured vehicles. Being a Gunship pilot in DropTeam would require extensive revision of the aircraft. After all, if DropShips can survive, Gunships could probably give it a go, terrain permitting. (Desert terrain/Plains probably not so much...) You would have to put a buttload of armour up front, shield all your sensors and optics, and heavily armour the cockpit from beamers. It would be a heavy, short-range monster. I'd put a lot of fire-and-forget ATGMs on it, and then a low velocity/high ROF gun with HEAT for destroying targets once it establishes a permissive environment. It'd be more of a close-air-support ship than a deep-strike type vehicle. You would have to rely heavily on your comrades establishing the situation, but it could be done. Sounds like it'd be worth a try. I'd use vectored thrust rather than rotors, to give you a broader environment to operate in. (I never liked that tail-rotor anyway...) You're trading off a lot of armour for 3-D mobility. Definitey put a heavy jammer and sensor fit... Gotta' see the enemy before they see you within line of sight... [ August 06, 2006, 06:57 AM: Message edited by: Caseck ]

I would like to see the RAM auto-grenade launcher. (Multiple AT grenade shots from a semi-auto launcher. HE or HEAT.) But this would require adding specialists to squads. It would also be nice to have ATGM teams. FO/RECON teams... If we go down the specialist route... Perhaps the squad should have a EW/jammer specialist? Perhaps even a mortar team? ADA teams would be interesting as well...

ONTOS was 6x106mm recoilless rifles for the uninformed... I just had to add that in there to set the baseline. It also had a .50 cal spotting rifle, ballistically matched to the guns.