Tower Defense mod

schkorpio · June 2010

<div class="IPBDescription">multiplayer of course! (Nano Grid & Hive Defense)</div>Every popular strategy game has a tower defense mod right? so since ns2 is an FPS RTS hybrid, why not have a FPS RTS TOWER DEFENSE hybrid mod :)


Revised idea
OK so dropping the dual game play idea - and keeping it simple. This new idea is much more like the original tower defense, with a bit of dungeon keeper / evil genious thrown in.

One player is the alien commander, and the rest of the players are marines.
Each round the marines must try to get through the defenses and reach the hive.
Timelimit for each round.

Role of the alien commander
Starts with X amount of res(depending on player amount)
Build static defenses such as marine turrets (hacked to kill marines), oc's, whips, web, barnacles, sieges (hacked)
Build traps such as proxy mines, floors that open into lava pits when stepped on, acidic infestation.
Blocked hallways, hack doors and lifts to deny access
(commander spells as previously mentioned by UWE team)

When the time limit is reached, the alien commander can take a physical form as a skulk (this can get upgraded with abilities, and evolutions to new life forms). endless respawns.

Money is gained by killing marine players ( it will be a variable amount depending on how many players are in the game for balance reasons).

Role of the marine players
marines start very vanilla loadout
Marines must figure out the safest path through the defenses and ultimately destroy the alien hive to end the game.
Each round the marines gain x amount of res to buy themselves upgrades to help them through.
They get bonus res if they can reach the hive and damage it.

Revision #2 you could reverse the idea and have aliens run through the defenses of a marine commander, this would be a more fast paced version of the game, where your speed and acrobatics would be more important to get you through thelevel (and maybe the game could alternate between the two modes to keep it fresh).

original idea: (now scrapped)
How would this kind of game work?

well there are a couple of different ways it could work, but i'd like to keep multiplayer as the focus.

The Commanders Role  (the base builder)
Obviously tower defense games start with a commander who builds defenses, and upgrades them - well since ns2 can have two commanders, this tower defense mod should also have two. A human and an alien commander.
Each commander plays their own seperate tower defense game in the same map/arena. (perhaps side by side, or mirror'd) the commanders will be building the base defense against rival species - using turrents, sieges, oc's, whips, walls, pits of lava, webs, you name it. we'll have to see what other toy UWE give us, but we can also make our own traps etc, repairs etc - whatever it takes to keep the commander engaged :) Like all all tower defense games - the commander's will start with a bit of cash to buy these items.

The role of all of the other players

Now instead of having npc's run through the defenses, we'll have real players go through. so at the begining of the game the teams are divided equally, into the two species - alien players will have to try to run through the marines defenses, and the marine players will have to try to run through the alien defenses.

Ok here is where the magic happens : Every time a marine player dies in the aliens maze, he will then be respawned as an alien, and try to run through the marines maze (and vice versa for alien players). This will make it harder for each the opposite commander to defend. Each kill will also reward the commander with res, to buy more defenses. So essentially the commanders are trying to out do each other (kind of like when you player VS in tetris or those bubble games).

To encourage this dual mechanism (and so they don't take sides) every time a player makes it through defenses and successfully, they will be rewarded with res - so that they can upgrade their own abilities (better armor, exo's, jet packs, welders to open new paths, aliens can evolve, bite through new access areas etc) (a bit like combat maps did the upgrades).
And this will really be the fun part: having the players work together and combine their abilities to help each other through the maze of defenses.
Their end goal will not only to reach the end of the maze, but once they are past the defense they will need to destroy the hive/command chair.

So essentially, the gauntlet runners player their own game against the commanders, while the commanders also play their own game against each other and against the players in running through.. its almost like a 4 way battle.

How to encourage(<strike>force</strike> lol) real players to actually run through the defense?
In tower defense games ai npc's just run through the gauntlet of defense without second thought, however real players will of course take their time, and won't blindily run into a wall of spike shooters, they will try to out smart the defenses.
So what I was thinking was, that when the opposite team either finishes going through the other sides defenses(either dies / or makes it through) then they will be able to go into the other arena to attack them.

E.g. marine team is hesitating moving through the alien defenses. But all of the alien team players have finished going through the marine teams defenses (died/ or got thru OK). So now this alien team can spawn in the alien defense area - and can they can get bonus res, for killing the those hesitant marines. (perhaps the aliens have unlimited spawns to make sure they will either force the marines through, or kill them themselves).
(And this would also happen vice versa).

Some i'm not sure about is whether to be able to attack and destroy the defenses (and have them respawn each round) or whether to focus the game on just getting through the obstacles and defenses, and only being able to shoot the other team and hive.

it probably sounds a bit complicated, but its really just two tower defense games on the same map, with a few extra feature - bit like that old dungeon keeper game i guess :) (except everyone is a real person playing)

i have no coding or art kills what so ever, but i am an ideas man, (i can also map a little bit, you guys may remember overly complicated co_operation the puzzle co-op map for ns1) so would love to be involved in a mod project. (but don't mind if i'm not, just want a good tower defense game to play, and if can help, then great :P) And also the nice thing about a mod like this is that, all of the assests and abilities will already be there in the game. its just a matter of making a suitable map, and coding in the game rules - and perhaps tweaking the existing abilities. so UWE have done all of the hard work for us already :)

whos up for it?

SparkyMcSparks · June 2010

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (schkorpio @ Jun 19 2010, 09:03 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1775534"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Ok here is where the magic happens : Every time a marine player dies in the aliens maze, he will then be respawned as an alien, and try to run through the marines maze (and vice versa for alien players).</div>

Why would someone want to rip apart the limbs from very team/people they were just helping?
It doesn't sound like much of a reward. Working really hard to defend your maze or attack the enemy maze, only to get killed and forced to undo all the hard work you did by being put on the other team upon respawn. It might get frustrating. Perhaps just make it Coop multiplayer against bots that way everyone works together towards a common cause without having the rug pulled out under them when they die and respawn.

It also sounds like you're going for a straight up Tower Defense. Perhaps take the best gameplay mechanics of TD-ish games and put a Natural Selection 2 spin on it, sort of like what Nazi Zombies did (it's Tower Defense at the core but it isn't a straight up cliche TD flash game mode).

You can probably do a quick 2-D top-down prototype in <a href="http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker" target="_blank">Game Maker</a> to help others visualize your idea and to actually see if your idea is fun and what needs tweaking (ie what if no one wants to be in the hot seat of Commander or someone AFKs in the hot seat, does the gameplay break?). The art doesn't need to be great in the prototype... you can use Xs and Os for players, just make sure it's fun.

schkorpio · June 2010

oh hey there would have to be a fair amount of play testing to make sure every aspect is fun - i'm more just throwing the idea out there :)

Zerotech · June 2010

hmmm. This kind of reminds me of Tower Defense maps based in Warcraft III. I don't mind it seeing it happening but be prepared for a mixed feedback.

TSS · June 2010

I'll take a stab at the idea.

How i remember tower defence in WC3 and CnC generals (which also had a big TD period) is simply, you build towers that cannot move and the AI runs through the maze in waves which you need to kill. Each unit gives money and each unit has a certain amount of HP to kill. None can reach the end. That's tower defence in it's most basic form.

IMO you've gone a bit over the top with the complexity of it. commanders competing against eachother and the players sounds like fun but it's extremely chaotic in game because everybody will basically be fighting a war on 4 fronts. And why help your current team if you get switched each time you die? not to mention what if 1 team is better then the other and kills off half the other team off the bat?

Make it much simpler. Have the marine side be the tower side, have the alien side lose the commander and be the "wave" side. Each wave gets pre-determined (by the mapper) HP and abilities, and their only job is to make it to the end. The towers themselves will be consisted of players. This can be done as a sort of "fox hole" and the marine has no weapon outside of this foxhole, thus beeing powerless to stop the alien assault.

The commanders job on the marine side is to manage the towers and their upgrades. The marines job will be earning money by stopping the alien force.

The aliens job will get through the maze. They can fire at the defensive structures (which then need repairs) but that doesn't earn them anything. The encouragement to move through the maze is because it's the only way to win.

This sounds like it's not enough to do, but, consider a maze where there are multiple exits or multiple ways of getting to an exit. AI will always pathfind a certain route. You cannot predict when 10 players all decide to suddenly take the left flank while you've thrown everything you've got at the right. They can spend an entire wave damaging towers, then rushing to the end with the next wave, which are faster aliens.

Compared to your idea this all seems much simpler yes, but then again, TD is an extremely simple idea which also works because it's a really simple and enjoyable concept.

If ya want to avoid the player as tower problem, How about expanding the other way, have no players run around but have multiple commanders that need to work together to stop the AI horde running down (basically as classic as TD can get). The game already supports 3 commanders per side, bumping that up to say, 8 all on the same side wouldn't be too hard to do. I'm willing to bet theres enough pathfinding in the builder bot to rig the other side with as well. You could always add in small variations like allowing the commander to step out of his commanders chair and take over a tower in FPS mode to increase aim/damage/rate of fire/whatever.

This is not to rip on your idea, I'd love a TD mod more then the imminent siegemaps. But what your describing is in essence, classic NS with combat XP modded in. Both sides start with a commander on one side of the map and try to make it through to the other side, the better they do the stronger they will be the next time around... It's such a complex form of TD that it's not really TD anymore :p

Zecon · June 2010

like idea except the whole ooh now u hurt what u where.

i think what happens is the marines/aliens can 'disable' turrets by attacking them for a certain amount of damage causing the turret to no longer attack. this way if theirs a
lone turret theirs a strategy of taking it out, if not run with heavies taking the damage. also u would have to custom make some turrets probably.

lastly look what TF2 Tower defense if u got to play that in gmod, was like. (clan that hosted it went down and they never released the script) that could give u some ideas if u can find it.

schkorpio · June 2010

hmmm i guess you guys are right, the concept might be overly ambitious and overly complicated. I'll update the original post with a simpler concept.

SparkyMcSparks · June 2010

Just a shot in the dark idea since I am new to the NS series and not familiar with NS1 gameplay...

Players
Max 8 players (ideally).
No friendly fire.
Survival mode (no scripted ending of any kind, just last as long as you can).
Marines (Player Controlled) start off in a space station or military HQ of some kind.

Waves
Aliens start off in small amount, modified by how many players are currently playing.
As waves get farther, the amount of aliens that attack will get exponentially bigger meaning prolonged amount of time action as you get farther.
Down time in between waves to quickly buy / repaid stuff.

Areas
Force Fields are up covering doors, but ventilations are uncovered for the smaller NPCs to go through.
The smaller NPCs main goal is to attack generators that feed power to the force fields in an area, and second objective is to attack players.
Once force fields go down, the bigger NPCs can start to come in.

Locked Areas
Some doors are electronic and require power cells to open.
The players have to search around an already open area for them and then the door can be opened unlocking a new area.
Have like an array of possible locations and on each play through randomly pick the locations for the power cells to be at.
Once locked area is open, that area generator turns on.

Kills
Killls give you points (aka money).

Repair
Repairing generators / turrets / etc... can be done by anyone and gives you points. But you can't fire your weapon while repairing.
Generators that are powered on give players points every few seconds.

Stores
Command Boxes won't actually be Commander Boxes like in NS stock gameplay. Rather, they are stores.
Any player can go up to one and buy weapons / items / defenses (ie turrets) / upgrades (force field).
You use your own money which derives from your score.
If you pick something like a turret or ammo drop, you get to choose where to drop it via the RTS top down view.

Dying
If you die there are two ways to get back into the game:
1) Wait for someone to revive you. Costs the reviver person XYZ points and a few seconds of being vulnerable (can't fire weapon).
2) Wait for round to end. Doesn't cost anyone points, you just have to wait.

schkorpio · June 2010

haha sparky you pretty much described exactly what happens at the end of an ns1 round, when the alien team starts to win :) except there are no controlled waves, the aliens just come and hammer the marines harder and harder

TSS · June 2010

I think you'll be better off with aliens beeing the waves and rines beeing the towers, as this jives more with a tower defence nature (when have you seen a TD game where your not the good side killing off creepy crawlers? :p).

The new idea is atleast alot more like TD :p lets see what i can make of it. As i understand it, it'll be a 15vs1 or a 7vs 1 commander. IMO, that's a bit too simple, Everybody will want to be the commander, and the rines are pretty much relegated to just running. If you give them weapons, they'll hunt the towers (i would) and the game is over in 1 round.

Maybe we need to consider the very essence of TD. Tower - Defence. In full RTS games, that means simply building towers for defence. Lets take that to NS and build on it: now we have a 1 player game, the commander, who can build towers to stop the aliens from reaching the end of the maze, aliens beeing AI.

Now we need to add in an FPS element. We can do that in either the aliens running or the towers shooting. Since sleeping it over and i've been thinking, it would be much more fun if the towers consisted of the players then just running. If you'd made players run, you'd need to give them something else to do because just running through towers is boring. Give them a gun, they'll hunt towers, the game changes. The 3rd option would be, add in more commanders. While this would be OK for a game mode, i think it would detract too much from the NS FPS/RTS nature and make the game soley RTS. So human controlled towers looks like the best option.

So now we have human towers. We also need to consider what happens if there are not enough humans to man the towers, so they turn into sentries if there's no player. We need something to encourage human towers though, which the FPS genre does for us: Aim. Sentries have a limited range, humans do not. Also, how do we get the player in the tower? I suggest allowing players to enter and exit towers at will, but have no weapons outside of the towers. This also has the side effect of if they break through your lines you can run to a tower at the back of the maze try and get the last few there.

This really is about as far as i'm personally willing to adjust the TD concept to NS2. Simply because, in every TD there is, the towers shoot automatically, and, on target. Once you introduce the chance that the tower might miss, might hit beyond it's hardcoded range or even might fire splash rounds (which are notoriously slow) ahead of the targets in the maze so it hits them every time instead of the aliens behind them, there's a load of variables you need to take into consideration for balance.

The reason why i don't add more is because you still have a whole concept - TD - that gets added to the above. Classic TD elements like:

- Each wave of aliens getting progressively more health. Obviously, but if it's up to the player whether you actually damage that unit or not....
- Each wave of alien is a different type (gorge = normal, skulk = fast, lerk = ignore maze, fade = gorge speed but strong, onos = boss battle)
- Each tower has upgrades, and upgrades have different paths (pistol = default, LMG/HMG = rapid fire, shotgun+GL = splash. Possibly custom weapons for the slow fire long range class).
- Each tower has elemental effects (Water = slow on hit, poison = damage over time, fire = armor penetration, lightning = stun chance)
- Each tower earns money for the commander per kill and experience for themselves. Towers can only be upgraded after leveling up and resources are available. Weapon types can be upgraded by the player (each player has a preferred way of killing), elemental types by the commander (for some unique tactic interaction there).
- Towers are build on the side of the maze. Traps are a good idea, but maze blockers i'm personally against. I'd much rather work with slow and the shape of the maze, then creating my own maze of towers on a map which is essentially a big corridor. This would also allow a bit more variation in maps (instead of having a big square and let the player deal with it).

And... well nothing more needs to be added really. Any variation in tactics that still needs to be added can be added in the form of maps and the properties of the waves you need to stop.

... sorry to kind of hijack your idea there, i got on a roll i guess :p I'm just kinda a purist when it comes to games. Wether the above works or not i have no clue, but i do know that's about as TD as NS2 can get :p

Feha · June 2010

Answer to your first question:
Ever played anti-td?

Firewater · June 2010

I would like to see two teams

Alien & Marine.

Alien Commander has to defend against a marine siege of human players (or AI)

Marine Commander has to defend against an Alien Siege of human players (or AI)

Field players can either help defend or attack wherever they are needed.

Drown · July 2010

I really like this idea, I'd totally play it!

<img src="http://lupusface.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/draft_lens2209648module19537082photo_1236458539captain_picard.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

Benaiah · July 2010

My response is based on human runners.
There should be a bonus for each foot of ground they cover. With lots of alternate routs. This will encourage all to rush at once and get as far as possible
Commander should be rewarded for both killing each runner, and for the time it takes all the runners to die. ie. if they are all moving really slow he gets more points.
There should also be a minimum speed like some of those mario levels, with seige explosions chasing the runners or lava or a pack killer bees!

I actually think that this will be quite hard to make fun.

Papayas · July 2010

Just a short question.

Can you make walls of defenses?

Because if you can then you can make mazes and put towers on top of the walls of something. As well as having an overhead view (As commander) of the maze and if it is in the game you could also have towers on the ceiling.

It would mess up though, if the marines got jetpacks or everyone on the Kharaa went lerk....

sasuke2490 · July 2010

tower defense is cool i think we should do this it would be awesome

Benaiah · July 2010

My Idea for a TD mod.
1. Multiple commanders. Only one needed though.
2. Build like any other tower defence game. Marines not required for construction.
3. Marines can run around.
- Repairing
- Attacking with powerful weaponry.
- Can be upgraded like towers from the armory.
- Prebuilt phase gates for easy repair access and to try and finish off runners.
4. Marines can be hurt/killed by certain monsters.
5. Difficulty scales with number of players.

if you wanted to make it vs.
1. Alien commander chooses what to send in next wave. Attackers, Fast, Armored
Handles upgrades.
2. Rest of the alien players play as specials. When they die can take control of regulars. When controlling a regular they get speed/hp bonus. Can be used to avoid splash damage but will just be a time waster until the next round.
3. Specials dont cause marines to lose lives but give the alien commander more money to play with.

Price · July 2010

My idea of xeno tactic like TD Mod for NS2 (alpha)
IDEA Based on <a href="http://www.onlinegamesquad.com/?1085-1" target="_blank">xeno tactic</a>

1 Team, marines, the aliens are played by Bots/npcs only
Up to 4 Command stations, typical Tower Defence map, you can place buildings
but you can't build a blockade, there must be one way through.

- wall
- Vulcan turret [like a sentry, shoot bullets]
- plasma turret [shoot plasma]
- sam turret [shoot rockets with splash damage]
- DCA [shoot flying enemys like lerk only]
- freeze turret [slow down enemys]
- sonic turret [attack enemys arround the turret]

<div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'>[u][b]Turret upgrades:
[/b][/u]
Wall: $2 block enemys, but must leave a way for waves.

Vulcan Turret: $5, 60 Range, 10 Damage
Vulcan Turret 2: $15, 60 Range, 20 Damage
Vulcan Turret 3: $10, 60 Range, 40 Damage
Vulcan Turret 4: $20, 60 Range, 80 Damage
Vulcan Turret 5: $50, 60 Range, 160 Damage
Vulcan Tower: $100, 180 Range, 400 Damage
(Total cost to fully upgrade: $200)

Plasma Turret: $25, 70 Range, 5 Damage
Plasma Turret 2: $10, 70 Range, 10 Damage
Plasma Turret 3: $20, 70 Range, 18 Damage
Plasma Turret 4: $35, 70 Range, 34 Damage
Plasma Turret 5: $70, 70 Range, 65 Damage
BFG Tower: $290, 90 Range, 320 Damage
(Total cost to fully upgrade: $450)

Missile Turret: $20, 90 Range, 8 Damage
Missile Turret 2: $15, 100 Range, 16 Damage
Missile Turret 3: $35, 110 Range, 32 Damage
Missile Turret 4: $60, 120 Range, 64 Damage
Missile Turret 5: $110, 130 Range, 128 Damage
Missile Tower: $160, 140 Range, 256 Damage
(Total cost to fully upgrade: $400)

DCA: $50, 60 Range, 20 Damage
DCA 2: $30, 60 Range, 40 Damage
DCA 3: $50, 65 Range, 80 Damage
DCA 4: $75, 65 Range, 160 Damage
DCA 5: $125, 70 Range, 320 Damage
THW Tower: $310, 75 Range, 480 Damage
(Total cost to fully upgrade: $640)

Freeze Turret: $50, 50 Range, 10 Damage
Freeze Turret 2: $25, 50 Range, 15 Damage
Freeze Turret 3: $25, 50 Range, 20 Damage
Freeze Turret 4: $25, 50 Range, 25 Damage
Freeze Turret 5: $25, 50 Range, 30 Damage
Zero Tower: $50, 75 Range, 40 Damage
(Total cost to fully upgrade: $200)

Sonic Turret: $30, 40 Range, 10 Damage, ?% chance to paralyze
Sonic Turret 2: $25, 40 Range, 20 Damage, 6% chance to paralyze
Sonic Turret 3: $50, 40 Range, 40 Damage, 10% chance to paralyze
Sonic Turret 4: $100, 40 Range, 80 Damage, 13% chance to paralyze
Sonic Turret 5: $185, 40 Range, 160 Damage, 15% chance to paralyze
Hypersonic Tower: $355, 40 Range, 320 Damage, 20% chance to paralyze
(Total cost to fully upgrade: $745)

$8 Dollar first Wave level/per kill/given to every player not only one player
$9 Dollar second Wave Level and on...$1 more

First Wave:
Skulks
Second Wave:
Gorges
Third Wave:
Lerks
Fourth Wave:
Fades
Fifth Wave:
onos
EVERY wave level comes these 5 Waves, after the last onos get killed, the time runs and new Wave Level starts.
To explain, every 20 seconds a wave start, after 5 waves done, the wave-level is done, 30 seconds later, the next wave level with 5 waves starts.
For the alpha maybe just use (skulk, gorge, lerk, gorge and skulk, skulk and lerk).
The lerk can only shoot by DCA Rocket turret, but the other aliens can not be shoot by the DCA Rocket turret.

A.I. :
Simple move to waypoint A-B-C-D bots, lerk A.i. is the same but its flying like the MACbot.</div>

Feha · July 2010

I just wonder, is this being developed by someone?

Also, the whole td idea for fps is not very new, as if you for example look at gmod, there is multiple and several dead (where some was good :P). But as there is commanders in ns2 the idea might be changed a little.
The reason I speak of this, is because I think that whoever decided to make this should think about how he would think the game would be the most fun.
Either it could be like a normal td, using the commander top down view placing defences, or it could be fps where the players run around, placing towers, which shoot at the creepers (possible player controlled, altough I think it would be better if it was npc, and there was 2 teams fighting on symmetrical maps, and they fight for highest hp at end of game).

Now I dont know how many played those gamemodes I am about to mention, but I am going to hope that some have.

There is this td in gmod that uses tf2 models where all players is engineers and they place turrets with he other kind of models, which just stand still face one direction and shoot at front creep (which is opposite color tf2 npcs with no guns). 2 teams each with several players (usually) play on symmetrical maps, try to get the best result.

There is also a gamemode made by "toweryard entertainment" which used zombie npcs that 1 team of several players running around tried to stop from reaching their "castle", by buying towers. It had a bit of metagaming, as depending on the teams progress, everyone got some "money" that a database remembered, so when they joined a lobby server, there was a shop where you could buy new towers and making it possible to upgrade them better. The metagaming required an extra srv which worked as a lobby (which actually was good in some ways) and a database that the servers could read data from, but this one was a fun td if you ask me.

If anyone wonder what this post is for, it is just to give some examples of existing td mods, to give inspiraion to the person that decides to mod this.

TSS · July 2010

That's actually the most relevant question in this thread, there's plenty of ideas in how to make TD, but is who is actually going to make it?

I for one, am up for it. I can model and with a bit o practice probably animate as well. I'm creative as well and i've just about played every TD in existance and i'm pretty good at finding teh glitch so i can playtest :p Even worked on my own TD map back in the day of CnC generals. Gawd that game was awefull to mod. Having worked on my own NS2 map i can say i can also design a map just fine, but i can't make it look pretty :p

I can't texture worth anything either. Something with 2D not jiving with mah brain. UWV maps are sketchy at best as well :p. I can't really code either, though i heard LUA isn't too hard. And i'm not leading this either i don't have the people skills for that.

So that cuts me out of some of the important stuff :p but get me a texture artist at and the very least i can crank out props like crazy.

spellman23 · July 2010

Something to check out is Sanctum on the UT3/UDK platform. Basically a singleplayer TD game, except played in the first-person only.

Walling will be a serious issue you need to check for. Traditionally what happens in normally the AI isn't able to shoot at the towers. However, if there is a wall, they start attacking (and quickly killing) the towers. I have NO IDEA how to deal with this if we have live runners. It's not terribly difficult though to program up a path checking algorithm to see if there's a path from entrance to exit. The tricky part is when to let human players zap the walls, or perhaps that's reserved for AI bots.

Really the question is are we doing s pure Commander vs Commander style or involving players as runners.

Here are all the variants of TD I've seen/can think of.
<ul><li>Commanders cooperate. AI bots spawn in opposing bases and run towards the other one. Commanders must devise clever TD mazes to kill them all.</li><li>Commanders compete. Not only do you build the defences, but you can also buy bigger and badder units to send to your enemy along with the constantly scaling up bots. Buying and sending more guys also increases your own money income.</li><li>Commander versus Runners. Single commander side versus bots + human runners. Human runners gain boosters to help them via buying equipment. Helps add a bit more variety instead of stupid AI bots doing all the running.</li><li>All FPS. Everyone is a builder, but at the ground level. You point at the ground and bring up stuff. Typically you personally don't run through the enemy lines and only build trying to out-do your opponent.</li><li>Fortress Style. All FPS. In phases. Everyone builds during one phase. During the rest, players can choose to become runners with more HP and such and rush the enemy fortress. Kinda like SourceForts.</li></ul>

1mannARMEE · July 2010

Okay I also think you should try to make it a classic TD:

- no players running around as spawns / food (this is just depressing for everyone)
=> you need AI instead of players.

- make multiple commanders, each with their own TD area they play in

- create some races ? (at least two) to choose from, maybe aliens with melee themed towers and rines with ranged towers

- keep the classic approach of mazing (maybe hard to do ?) and a fixed amount of life you can loose
- also keep the upgrading of towers and maybe general teching and special towers for slowing or something unique

As I see it, it should serve as a fun map / mod until the server is filled with enough players to play a normal round (so aim for up to 6 commanders imho)

After you did the basics above you can start putting in all the neat ideas, like logging out of your com chair and be the one man army :) with special skills and / or weapons (if unlocked)

This would be the classic approach
-------------------------------------------------------

Zombie Survival Style

if there is good AI support or anyone is able to make a good one,
why not have a Starship Troopers like "Castle" Defense, with about 5 special players a commander and HUGE waves of Aliens, just like the popular Zombie Survival maps or Castle Defenses (the difference being in the latter you have a base to defend, the other one needs you to move around L4D style)

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Maybe even a hero arena like map (not combat) more like WoW Arena, but you need skill aiming and not only hugging the pillars :=)

So different classes 3vs3 Arena style, this could be big (there are hundreds of clones of Dota, but essentially it's all the stripped down version of WoW Arena [to some extend] ) imho, but time intensive to make it good !

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I sure hope all this ideas all the people posted here will replace the imho retarded siege maps, so you finally have better alternatives to spend your time between real rounds :)

schkorpio · July 2010

nobody is working on this yet as far as i know. chop chop!

Motig · July 2010

I had a TD mod in mind months ago, I was thinking of making it myself but I think I'll be creating something different. I'll post the document I wrote, perhaps you'll find something interesting. Let me know!

It was a very rough concept.

<a href="http://www.wtfrandom.com/NaturalDefense0.1.doc" target="_blank">http://www.wtfrandom.com/NaturalDefense0.1.doc</a>

SunshineKiller · July 2010

it would be cool if the team has 30 players and the opposing one commander and the goal was to kill the commander :D

schkorpio · December 2012

bump :)

Beause of the popularity of tower defense, done right, this could be the Counter Strike of NS2, which could help sales a lot. as far as i know there are NO 16+ player tower defense games, and tower defense is still a popular mode of game play - apart from maybe the marine AI (which would be mostly following a set path anyway like MACs and drifters already can do ) the mod would be mostly just using everything that already exists in NS2 so it could be a fairly simple mod to create.

I've been tempted to do this myself but way too short on time atm. But I think tower defense could work really well with 16 alien players setting up their lair, and having AI marines running through the gauntlets.

The marines would have different abilities as well and equipement, but would be the usual mob style where they don't attack the defenses, but rather the players only and their main goal would be to run through to reach the hive rather than damage the defenses at all.

e.g. you could have a AI marines some that weld, some that are followed by macs, some with jetpacks, some being med packed, some with exos etc

SoundFX · December 2012

I love tower defenses but not the mazing kind. I also like the ones that do something just a little different, like RPG qualities or PVP aspects. I fell in love with LegionTD (WC3) and its counterpart SquadronTD (SC2) which bring a pvp and team-survival like atmosphere to the genre. If you have never played it here's a generalized breakdown (though i highly recommend playing it):

o 2 sides supporting up to 4v4 play.
o Your towers are stationary but become units when waves begin.
o You have a base with 1 worker to begin with which collects the secondary resource (wood, vespene gas)
o You must balance your gold to build towers and workers
o The secondary resource is used to send units to the other side which in turn provides you with income at the end of each wave.
o There is a rock paper scissors effect in terms of damage and armor.

I'd also like to point you to these:
<a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/Ironhidegames/kingdom-rush" target="_blank">http://www.kongregate.com/games/Ironhidegames/kingdom-rush</a>
<a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/Ninjakiwi/bloons-td-5" target="_blank">http://www.kongregate.com/games/Ninjakiwi/bloons-td-5</a>
<a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/gameinabottle/gemcraft" target="_blank">http://www.kongregate.com/games/gameinabottle/gemcraft</a>

schkorpio · December 2012

they look cool, but i'm thinking something more along the lines of orcs must die :)

SoundFX · December 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (schkorpio @ Dec 4 2012, 11:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2040230"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>they look cool, but i'm thinking something more along the lines of orcs must die :)</div>

Orcs must die was surprisingly fun!

Maybe aim to incorporate a little Dungeon Defenders? Everyone loves DD!

Tower Defense mod

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