Development Blog Update - Unknown Worlds Videocast #4
Flayra
Game Director, Unknown Worlds EntertainmentSan Francisco Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 3Super Administrators, NS2 Developer, Subnautica Developer
Game Director, Unknown Worlds EntertainmentSan Francisco Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 3Super Administrators, NS2 Developer, Subnautica Developer
Comments
nice idea , i want a soon release of ns2 =(
How are aliens supposed to deal with these things now that they are mobile?
After seeing a mobile siege the question "How and where are these sieges spawned?" rises.
If they are moving as slow as they look like (Soldiers are running faster?) then it will be an annoying task to guard the weapon from the base to the siege location.
And if you have to spawn sieges at your base only, it would really make me mad if the aliens destroy my siege for the third time before it reached it's destination.
A teleporter/big PG for the siege would be cool, but this would make the moving useless, again.
I'm waiting for the next news <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink-fix.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/siege.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::siege::" border="0" alt="siege.gif" />
IMO, best when comm spawn sieges.
IF sieges can ride without marines, and noise (<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />) they are very dangerous!))
Oh, and pazzaz is always a great extension pillar. For everything.
IMO, best when comm spawn sieges.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
While I'm sure the speed won't be fast, I don't think it will be excessively slow. Even if it was, having a mobile siege opens up many strategical options for both the aliens and the marines and is far from useless.
For example, a mobile siege is probably just going to roll through everything it gets near -- this includes RTs and any defense around those RTs (DC chambers, etc). The ability to just have one of these MASC (pronounced mask or mass? Or maybe Automated Siege Cannon -- pronounced ask?) with a couple of marines who can aim well could potentially shut down the alien team. For example - send the majority of marines to pressure some hive while the handful of good marines stays with the MASC and downs most of the alien RT's. Keep in mind, it can shoot RTs through walls at a distance, so the chance the aliens could find the MASC before they the RT is destroyed is pretty low. With added pressure on the hive, the aliens may not even notice their RTs being destroyed.
On the reverse side, if the aliens know that the marines are rolling out with a couple of these things - they can choose to ignore them for the minute or so it takes for them to travel and instead do a base rush to try to destroy most of the marine's buildings.
I'd say they're not really useless. Instead, they take an older idea from NS and jazz it up a bit to add more strategy and decision making. Kind of like the 'phase suit' suggestion, but a little more viable and useful.
They don't require marines to ride on them, in most cases you probably wouldn't want to ride on them, and we don't even know for sure if the player will in fact be able to ride on them. We just thought it might be a fun little thing that the player could do.
As far as their speed, I'm sure that will be adjusted accordingly to not be too annoyingly slow, but not too fast either. And, while I don't want to hypothesize about gameplay, since that's not really my department, I'd assume since the siege cannons in their undeployed mobile state are more heavily armored and protected, they would be a lot harder to take out then when deployed. So, they wouldn't be easy prey for the aliens while on route to a hive location.
And if it bombs you can put a pez dispenser on it so the troops have something to mess with while its doing its thing blocking choke points lol ----------jk .
I Hope there will be a good level of interactivity and tweaking on the part of the marines and not just a fire and forget weapon.
Assuming the TF makes the sieges,
Ok now the actual concept of a "turret factory can take place. Imagine the War Factory of Red Alert, - as the gates of the turret factory open, out comes wheeled machine that is ready to play. (This can also be appllied to sentry turrets. ) Assuming that sieges are created around a TF (except now comes out of a TF), you are keeping to the general play style of NS1. TF needs to be upgraded, maintained, recon-ed, etc. However, you are not at all restricted to the TF for the siege to fire, you can now build 2-3 sieges, and march your caravan of marines and seiges to the siege point. The now tired but true NS1 - 'rush siege point' and 'hold it and upgrade' can still exist (for you conservative comanders), but a new method of sieging can evolve... the literal 'march sieges into siege point' in a barrage of lerk gas, skulk leaps, and gorge spit, where marines are essentially covering an objective per-se. Exciting! Im getting fired up!
Now assuming the sieges are made in spawn,
Can you imagine those NS1 tactics, fellow commanders, where you sneak a pg, tf, and 5 sieges to take out a hive in a mere 5 seconds? I love those, but those spur-of-the-moment rushes would be obsilete. Now we have to wheel these mofuggin robots all over the map, and (control them), and the only decision the commander can really make is whether or not a siege needs to be built. The rest is up to the marines. Now in NS1 with unruly marines, can you imagine putting all of the control in a Rambo's hands? "FOLLOW THE ROBOT, NO DO NOT GO THERE - UGH U ARENT EVEN GOOD UGHHH!" Having seiges built at base would take away greatly from the commander's role I believe. At the same time you are putting the weight of controlling the robots to the commander (I don't care how good of programmers you are but you need some good asszs AI to make a robot that you don't want to scream at). Imagine' defenseless WALL-Es as they struggle to survive, their only defense being 'follow waypoint to safety.'
After Thoughts :
Of course sieges HP / speed / Firepower would all need to be skewed for that perfect gameplay, but movable sieges are definately exciting. Maybe give a marine the sole objective to protect a siege? Make a siege buddy that will weld the marine as an incentive to cover it? Some type of symbiotic personal relationship of man and machine? Hell, I wouldn't mind trudging along with my personal siege cannon protecting it. It's like my own personal AWESOME-O. And I hope for the TF spawned Siege solely because marines can make little recon bases before they actually push the hive, because now hives aren't restricted to the 3 hive locations ( I heard) so gameplay should be farely new each and every game.
MY 2 CENTS I LOVE YOU ALLL
First, I would hope that we would still have the classic siege option. Its a staple of the gameplay, and creates such amazing scenarios, completely and instantly reversing the attacking/defending roles.
I would see the mobile siege as part of the 'top tier' equipment. Very expensive, perhaps with a long, automated buildtime. A buildtime would give the Aliens a chance to be forewarned, before it even leaves the base. Then give it a movement speed of slightly less than a walking marine, a slow turn radius (so it has to slow for 90 degree turns), and a ~7 second deployment time. Ten seconds would be way too much, and 5 feels too quick, especially given that a comm would want to deploy it at least once en route to the hive to hit RTs or whatnot.
High HP while undeployed, lower while deployed. It adds the slow push gameplay that became such an amazing hit with TF2's GoldRush, while adding in the defending and economic consequences of NS' strategic overlay (i.e., if the marines fail in defending the MASC, it will actually be destroyed and they lose the resources and time spent pushing, etc, rather than having the Bomb Cart in Goldrush just slowly moving backwards).
I think it would be an amazing addition to NS, and hope it would be a complement to the commander's arsenal options, rather than a replacement. If balanced correctly, both would have their benefits and disadvantages. Maybe keep the current sieges as they are, but let the mobile siege be able to 'power up' for more or less powerful shots, allowing comms to take out chambers in one hit, etc. Or perhaps it could have a longer range; it could have a pushback effect on all lifeforms (throwing hive-healing gorges across the room); it could even have an electricity upgrade to help it be defended against lower lifeforms. So many options.
Amazing update! Much appreciated.
-Stix
My one beef with the final design here though is that the gun doesn't look like it can rotate. It should elevate a little higher off the base on a rotating platform IMHO.
--Scythe--
They would be armored enough to make it near impossible for a skulk or two to do any real damage while on its way to a hive, but still vunerable to bile bomb or whatever the equivalent will be so that's why you need a marine escort.
Just load up a marine or two with heavy armor and heavy weapons and they would be the siege escort squad for the rolling cannons. Once you get to the hive most of your team would start showing up for the actual siege from a PG.
Great work cory
I don't think they plan to have the gun rotate 360.
The concept of something being tougher while undeployed is original to my knowledge, and I like that idea. It also provides incentive to undeploy the cannon as soon as aliens show up, to keep it safe while your marines fight off the assault. In turn, aliens would be encouraged to keep assaulting the cannon, to keep the incoming damage down.
As to how/where it is built, unless marine construction rules change radically, I imagine we'll still either be able to build it directly where we want it, or build the structure that builds it where we want it... Heh... Or we could build the structure that upgrades into a mobile siege cannon where we want it...
Gah, anyway! More of these videos are very welcome!
Well it would be silly to force the vehicle itself to be pointed in the right direction, that would just be annoying to deal with. Even if the siege has to be locked in a certain direction when it's deployed, the comm should be able to point the gun in any direction when he deploys it without having to turn the thing around.
I think the idea of wheeling this thing around the map is a good idea, however I also think you should be able to do something else.
Create some kind of seige phase gate. It would obviously be a right pain in the arse wheeling this thing from hive to hive. It would take an epic amount of time, and once destroyed, you're going to have to move another one of these tanks to the hive again.
To overcome this, perhaps allow the marines to be able to build a seige phase gate. That way, you can wheel extra seige cannons from base to your attacking position in a small amount of time. To stop people going ninja on a hive too easily, make it that some other struction (armory or something) has to be built before the seige phase gate can be. Also, in order to keep the seige cannons operational, some kind of power supply must be available to the seiges for them to "recharge" (after expending all their power) before they can fire again. That way, the aliens can do two things. They can either take down the seige phase gate to stop more from coming, or they can take down the power supply to stop them from recharging. If they destroy the phase gate, the existing seiges will still be able to fire. If they destroy the power source, more sieges can come in, but they can not recharge after they have fired a few/many times.
Just a though.
I think the idea of wheeling this thing around the map is a good idea, however I also think you should be able to do something else.
Create some kind of seige phase gate. It would obviously be a right pain in the arse wheeling this thing from hive to hive. It would take an epic amount of time, and once destroyed, you're going to have to move another one of these tanks to the hive again.
To overcome this, perhaps allow the marines to be able to build a seige phase gate. That way, you can wheel extra seige cannons from base to your attacking position in a small amount of time. To stop people going ninja on a hive too easily, make it that some other struction (armory or something) has to be built before the seige phase gate can be. Also, in order to keep the seige cannons operational, some kind of power supply must be available to the seiges for them to "recharge" (after expending all their power) before they can fire again. That way, the aliens can do two things. They can either take down the seige phase gate to stop more from coming, or they can take down the power supply to stop them from recharging. If they destroy the phase gate, the existing seiges will still be able to fire. If they destroy the power source, more sieges can come in, but they can not recharge after they have fired a few/many times.
Just a though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's an awesome idea, like an upgradeable phasegate that can transfer heavy materials (aka siege tanks) so if theres like an outbreak at hive (ninja putting up the hive near a marine implacement) can phase through a siege tank instead of having to escourt it arround the map.
- insane designs Cory they look great even the little motor bikey one lol.
it would make the option of moving it a bit more challenging and possibly more fair to the aliens?
And since it can't move by itself, marines would have to defend the siege cannon
but then again, the siege cannon looks pretty heavy, it would take quite some manpower to push it
and moving something with treads would be a bit weird too <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
Yeah, it's actually kind of hard to tell from the angle the siege cannon is drawn at, with the front end sections covering up part of the base that the gun is attached to, but that is actually meant to be a rotating platform base. The gun supoort "legs" and cables are all attached into that platform, so the the whole gun should be able to rotate. I don't know if it we will want it to rotate a full 360, but it should be able to swivel at least 180 degrees to fire at targets which aren't directly in front of it.
i don't think so either. as they said it can pivot on the spot, so it could just pull up the stabilizers, pivot to face the new target, then drop the stabilizers again, all while being partially deployed and still vulnerable.
this certainly opens up a lot of new gameplay possibilities, cant wait to see how everything works ingame.
great vidcast guys, it was good to see both of you talking to the camera. and once again jon fingers editing was awesome, very funny <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
Keep up the good work, I hope you get it done right. And for the love of Gorge don't release it until it is done =b
A commander guided turret should allow the commander a bit more depth of involvement on the battle field. I imagine they would move about walking pace (ie slower than the normal marines), be about as hard as an Onos while mobile and significantly more vulnerable when deployed.
The question of forward building them is interesting as is the issue of if they can use phase gates.
I'd like to see phase gates deployed this way too, to stop marines sneaking them up so easily. Have you considered have a generic mobile/deployable tracked base with optional "turrets", ie mobile phase gate, siege cannon, observatory, armory?
p.s. when the animation modeling and textures are done could you post a vid of it deploying?