A few (mostly aesthetic) suggestions

[mcoyote]

Hi there,

Recently bought the full version and have been loving it, and I'm very impressed with the pace of meaningful updates to the software.

I am a long-time player of Steel Beasts and other armor and naval sims (heading out to get Harpoon ANW next paycheck). I am still getting the hang of the intended balance of DropTeam, so I don't have much useful to say about how units are structured or the like, but I love the premise and the general gameplay is definitely a hoot.

It definitely has the fun thing going on -- I find myself very engaged in the action and constantly thinking about what to try next, which is a good sign in my book.

I have a few things to suggest that are pretty minor but I believe would add a little more zip to the general feel of the game (which is already admittedly compelling);

- Weather effects that offset visiblility and (potentially) traction. The ones I've seen done well in some cases are blowing dust, rain, and snow.

In many games effects such as these are candy, but this has more potential here because we actually have cover and substantial terrain in many cases. Such gives the environment sophistication and interesting sight lines. Given that, weather effects that limit visiblility and/or choice of firing position due to traction (i.e., mud) could be very challenging.

It would be killer if there were actual squalls that moved across the landscape, but that would require applying different modifiers all over the place and I'm sure it would be prohibative. It's attractive in the abstract, however, because our maps are decently sized.

- Similarly (and I might have seen this, so forgive me), night/dusk, with/without moonlight.

- Blowing smoke. This is achieved in modern vehicles by dumping fuel and/or smoke grenades. Given that DropTeamp vehicles are powered by, er, magic, I would vote the latter but provide lots of them and/or the ability to ripple them so that an actual smoke screen could be generated in some cases.

- Mobile concealment of some kind. I realize this is vauge, but it would be attractive to be able to conceal a vehicle such that it wouldn't show up on a tactical display until it was uncomfortably close. I'm thinking the ability to pop some kind of environment-specific camo net or blanket, which would naturally take some time to deploy or stow and would be pretty easily destructible.

- To offset all of the above, alternate gunsight visualizations. NV and/or thermal IR would be nice (they are different and have different applications, though I could easily see choosing one or the other for expediency). This is most commonly achieved by having an alternate set of NV or IR textures, but given that we have 3D component models on these vehicles it may be more complicated than that to do well.

In terms of gameplay, I have little substantive to add at this time, as I said, but a couple of things do come to mind:

- Propogating hits through AFV tires to their bodies would be desireable if it's not done now -- my interpretation of another post by Clay is that the tires effectively stop AP rounds because the tires are seperate objects of some kind. Although I agree that AP rounds should travel pretty rapidly and efficiently through think-skinned vehicles, their critical systems ought to be badly mauled when their are in the notional path of travel, tires/rims notwithstanding.

- Infantry jump jets could use a little more burn time or they could stand to walk a bit faster. An ATGM crew would be pretty useful but, I agree, should be balanced with care. I think infantry is implemented well all things considered, however, and I look forward to adapting my strategies to include them (they do look like they're walking with a load in their britches, however).

- Discrete countermeasures will probably be of mixed value, except in specific cases. Things I'm thinking of that would be useful would be something to deter ATGMs (chaff/flares) simply because you have time to do something about them, things that would be difficult to convey well and probably wouldn't be all that useful in my mind would be anti-personnel point defenses for AFV's.

ATGM deterrants may be useful, OTOH, but they might be tricky to balance because ATGM carriers currently have such poor survivability. If a bot tank is skilled at swatting ATGMs you might as well not bother deploying them at all, IOW. With a hard-to-detect infantry ATGM crew and/or marginal ATGM countermeasures, however, it could be more interesting.

- Given that the turret weapons are so quick to bring to bear, I can't see non-axial weapons (e.g., extra MG's on tanks, such as the topside .50 BMG and 7.62 on the Abrams) being critical. Still, your average modern tank has more tricks up its sleve than its main turret, so it would be a nice touch were practical.

- Field deployable mines or other area denial technologies would be suave. Something you could dump out of the back of an AFV or shoot through a main gun, I'm thinking.

[mcoyote]

Oh, and I thought it usfuel to add:

- Reinforcement points/areas will be useful, but a scenario designer ought to consider the possiblity of using dropships or at least have more than one such area, because otherwise the opposing team could camp the area under certain conditions and that would be the end of the scenario.

[aittam]

well almost all your points are being considered and some exist unless you are taliking about implement them:

smoke->from liveships but you need a command vehicle, other options are discussed like chaffs/flares

detectability->hermes' cover also others vehicles that stay close enough, to give every vehicle such ability won't encourage team play

reinforcement point-> added in 1.1.3 soon to be relased

infantry burners-> a light infantry with scouting/painting roles is currently discussed as well as heavy infantry and others grunts devices (claymore/mines)

mines are discussed in relation to the cutter role

free tip: keep atgm carriers far away and use hills and ridges and pop out just the launcher

[CrimsonDestiny]

I have to agree with making infantry quicker. Maybe not their standard walk, but maybe a sprint key which disallows any shooting while it's pressed.

[adzling]

i like the emplaced camo option

it would differ from a the cloaking ability that the hermes offers.

1). it would not only mask the anti-matter signature but also visually conceal the afv from the enemy (at least until they get within 1000-2000 meters, the main gun fires or the afv moves.

2). alternately scratch the anti-matter signature cloaking and just as visual concealment with the above caveats.

While not as useful it would still be a good trick as you could place a bot or two (or three) nearby and in the heat of battle there's a good chance your enemy would confuse your sig with the nearby bots giving you the chance to trap em in an ambush of a force more powerful than they expected..

of course either option would take time to setup and as such would probably only be available to the defender..

[yurch]

I'm somewhat against kicking the infantry speed up. This is a game engine built for tanks - infantry 'feel' much slower then they actually are. There's little reason for them to run faster - that will just shift them more from patience unit to silent nightmare. Faster jetpacks, maybe, since you have to sacrifice stealth for speed.

I think infantry on 'full forward' move about half the speed of a Thor. As it is now you can walk clear up to many units if they don't notice you.

[mcoyote]

Originally posted by yurch:

I'm somewhat against kicking the infantry speed up. This is a game engine built for tanks - infantry 'feel' much slower then they actually are. There's little reason for them to run faster - that will just shift them more from patience unit to silent nightmare. Faster jetpacks, maybe, since you have to sacrifice stealth for speed.

I think infantry on 'full forward' move about half the speed of a Thor. As it is now you can walk clear up to many units if they don't notice you.

Actually, given that AFV's will shortly be able to transport infantry this isn't really an issue to me. That will make them effectively faster and more survivable.

I am still very curious about weather, night/day, and NV/IR visualzation. I think those would add some value for the reasons I stipulate above -- we have such nice large maps, it'd be crime to leave those pretty sight lines unobstructed .

[yurch]

The paladin 20mm, 76mm and ion can transport infantry now. Just walk the infantry into the back of one of these stopped vehicles. B gets out if the vehicle is moving slow enough.

Although, I think there's a crash involved with it currently...

[Dark_au]

Mcoyote If you are a player of tactical games like SB give up now.

This is not a game of mobile tactical armoured warfare. What it is, because of the way people play it online, is a purile first person shooter in the guise of tanks. It does nothing but promote dumb "bunny hopping" based play, and the sum tactical possibility for missions is endless itterations of King of the Hill. Even the landscape doesn't count because people don't want to embrace even the basics of mobile warfare.

[tankibanki]

One point you bring up reminds me of something I wanted to suggest. In desert maps I would like to see tanks kick up dust, which blocks LOS. However it wouldn't have such a great impact and probably constitutes a considerable additional workload for the CPU.

[cool breeze]

Hey Dark_au, what is the most people you have played a game with? How many of them had mics? until you have played numerous games where every one had mics and almost all were human and you tried to organize a team you really have no idea what this game is and will be about. You argue like a child and lose soundly, walk out, and start trying to scare off my fellow players?! Get off this forum punk, please, until you start acting your age. It is certainly at least a kind of mobile armoured tactical.. game. the team which is most organized and plays smartest always wins.

[Chilibird]

Dark, that sounded awfully short-sighted. The game is as real, or unreal, as the players make it. Personally, every near-full (12-14 human players) game that I've played is very much a battle of mobile strategy, involving cover, resupply, and counter-offense.

As a matter of fact, just a few days ago, I played a round where at first, we all dropped in 'throw away' vehicles (Think 10 MM Ion Apollos) at the north end of the map (I don't recall the name all the sudden). While the enemy, which had time to bolster their defenses during planning, was busy wiping us out, a single cutter dropped in the southeast corner, and fortified a position there by capturing the AA towers. We successfully won that round there, all through a 'smoke and mirrors' tactic used at the beginning so we had a clear drop zone. It was one of the best stratigic moves I've seen pulled in this game, and I was most impressed to see how well it worked.

I would hardly say this is a 'fps under the guise of tanks', Dark.

Anywho.. like has been said, Mcoyote, most (if not all) of those are being considered. I'm personally looking forward to a 'weather' implementation. Having it rain on a map could make things a lot more interesting.

[aittam]

yep infantry should only be an implement to afv and again place them in the good spot and the enemy will walk on you but also on an open terrain map like the one with the bridge that has to be taken you can walk up to the defenders at the bridge and bust them w/o being seen if you don't use jets

unless a specific class i thinks jets' juice is fine coming from open grounds you cannot jump directly on an enemy from too far away not to be seen-> gives a fair possibility to the coax if you are too impulsive

[ClaytoniousRex]

A great list of ideas, Coyote, especially for your first post! I hope we get to hear more as you find time to play.

Weather effects that offset visiblility and (potentially) traction...squalls

It adds a huge amount of replayability to scenarios so there's no question this is a good thing. It's been on our feature list for a while now. Honestly, it will take a while to get there (but we eventually will).

Night...NV and/or thermal IR

This is probably the only thing you suggested that we're not very interested in at present. The same basic game but with a thermal or other night imaging shader applied to the graphics doesn't add much gameplay value for the amount of work involved. If done properly then, yes, it could actually change gameplay, too. But there are a lot of other features that would probably please us all more for the same or less work.

Reinforcement points/areas will be useful, but a scenario designer ought to consider the possiblity of using dropships or at least have more than one such area, because otherwise the opposing team could camp the area under certain conditions and that would be the end of the scenario.

Yes, this is how it already works in 1.1.3. The scenario author can specify any number of reinforcement zones for each team.

Propogating hits through AFV tires to their bodies would be desireable if it's not done now -- my interpretation of another post by Clay is that the tires effectively stop AP rounds because the tires are seperate objects of some kind.

This is fixed in the imminent 1.1.3 release.

In desert maps I would like to see tanks kick up dust, which blocks LOS.

Right, Tanki. This would be implemented along with the ATGM countermeasures feature since the code is so similar.

Anyway, welcome aboard, Coyote!

[Sabot3]

Team play certainly makes all the difference in the world, especially when you are on TS or Ventrillo or such. Lone wolfing tends to lead to a lot of bad tactics and after trying to juggle all the tasks yourself and often failing, I find that I tend to get into the mode of just shooting things so that I can at least get some enjoyment from the scenario. I worked with one fellow on one scenario where we worked as a Paladin / infantry team and it was great to see how well it worked. Improvements to bot wrangling would be a great help but in the end team play will make or break the game.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

Improvements to bot wrangling would be a great help but in the end team play will make or break the game.

The great thing is that improvements to bot wrangling will, by necessity, bring in more ways to communicate things to other players in-game in ways that speech doesn't convey well.

A platoon leader, for example, could plot the platoon's movement for everyone to see, so you know what your job in the platoon is coming up. Or the company commander (for lack of a better term, currently) could direct player-led platoons in a more integrated way, with the platoon leader deciding what "Attack Here" means with the voice comm aiding.

Really, its all about creating parallel communication opportunities.