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If you think about it, any point where the players can end up spawning can be camped. I think the most reasonable solution is just to wrap a strong defense around it, which if it gets broken would probably mean you're dead anyway.

By the way, I thought of a new idea. I could give players flag beacons which they can place anywhere (visible) on the map during the start period only. The placed end of the flag beacon would become their own personal hangar entry point, but they can only set one per player, and they always end up back at their base's start point even after entering it via. the beacon.

Sounds fair, and you can replace them for a cost, which leads to more chaos :D

It should be only in their half on the map only

Hmm. I think I'll move that feature into the later to-dos list. I got to get just the basic gameplay out of the way first, so my next task is going to be adding in the bases (after I finish with the current bug list). Then after that, I'm going to work on the gameplay and progression (finally).




ADDITION:

Planning Update: Finally I figured out how I'm going to handle missions! First I was thinking of random missions, but then I decided I didn't want them to throw off gameplay by popping up in the middle of things. I also didn't want them to pop up on a fixed timeline, which might make them too predictable.

Thus, I was left either with waiting until certain criteria are fulfilled for the team (which isn't too far from random if you don't know or can't control the criteria), or else making them selectable by the players somehow.

But then I thought, what if I made them something you can purchase? Problem with that, though, is players low on money would have less access to them than players with more (for whom they'd be comparatively less valuable for). However, as I'd already come up with the idea of using scientists as an additional resource, I realized I could make them purchaseable that way instead!



Now however, it's a matter of thinking of how scientists are going to be handled as a resource. Unlike money, which you get from killing and generate automatically from building team spawners (mostly from killing, though), I want scientists to be gained specially. My original thought is that you can only get them by killing enemy spawners, but I realized that would mean I'd have to make enemy spawners relatively easy to kill. Plus, the person who could kill them the most would, yep, be the one with the most money to spend on killing implements in the first place. That would defeat the purpose of adding scientists as a resource for players who choose not to go on the killing route.

Therefore, I'm still pondering ideas for how scientists are to work. You guys wouldn't have any would you?

I like the idea of purchasing missions for scientists.

I do too, but now I got to think of how scientists are going to work as a resource.

I'm thinking that one way to do it would be to make missions as the primary way of getting additional scientists (there'd have to be another way, though, to be able to get the missions). But this way, it makes an alternate route for players to play by instead of simple killing.

Scientists could be gained by different factors:

Exploring: First player to a place earns scientists.
Killing: Killing something adds scientists.
Constructing: Constructing something creates scientists.

This would eliminate the I-am-a-brute-I-kill-for-scientists aspect of the problem, and would add some teamwork. Some specialize in construction, some in Exploring and so forth.

Also, you can create promotions or ranks that add scientists.

And a scientist just being created every now and then will also help some people.

Actually, the exploring and building might just be what I'm looking for! Exploring just gets you an early small edge... perhaps only enough to buy your first mission or give some small boost. But construction nets you a small bundle of scientists, which would act as the main way of getting additional scientists (instead of missions).

I like it.

Glad to be of some help.

Well with that out of the way, I've decided I'm going to push missions to a later stage. I have four main ones thus far: Bombing, Escort, Rescue, and Sabotage. But I'll worry about them later.


Gah, I'm surprised at how late it is for me to be doing all this planning. I shoulda had this stuff done before I even started on the terrain. Oh well. Lesson learned.

Just to get something clear:
Do you get 1 unit that resembles your whole mech, or are the mechs something more advanced?

Mechs are made of multiple units that follow a main cockpit unit in a 4 stage chain.

Are there any limits on how much things you can buy? Like the weapons and armor?

16 of each, yes.

I think thats a pretty high number because they can automatically kill some things in 1 shot together, but in other cases there are stronger armors and cock pits but they cost too much. Like if you get alot of cheap ones, you can easily break the normal armor and directly kill the cockpit after very easily.

Well I'm going to be toning down a lot of the parts so that's not the case. That's what balance testing is for.

Are we up to balance tests yet? Because I was thinking the tests we were doing was for finding bugs

We kinda are. I mean we were able to hold a reasonable match for awhile there, right? However I think until I add in the other gameplay functions and remove the bugs that are left (I've noticed it's getting harder to bug things up this time ), we won't really get to have proper matches just yet.

Hopefully, I should have that done by the end of this week, and be ready for some proper tests by weekend.

It might be possible if you do atleast 2 testing days. Last week we only did 1, or atleast the ones I knew of.

Ok guys, I'm on hold for a bit to fix up some computer issues, but I've finished considering brainstorm ideas (and some new ones), organized them into my to-do list, and now need to address one last thing: Scientists. Currently, they're either gotten by building or killing enemy spawners. However, now I need to know what to spend them on (they're for team upgrades only).

So far they can be used to "buy" the following things:

• Unlock purchases (I plan to have many of them locked in the beginning)
• Upgrade spawners (produce new unit types)
• Buy an Ion Cannon (a long range cannon that players can enter inside and use to defend base)
• Buy missions

Any more ideas? I'm all ears.

I'll test.

Maybe you could use scientists for getting computer heroes, like a hero ghost that lockdowns some parts of your mech, or an arbiter for the computers.

That's actually not a bad idea. But would those heroes just sit there and kill anything that comes in range, or go to attack the enemy? Even the hardiest of heroes would eventually expire if they just threw themselves at the enemy's defenses, though. They'd be put to better use if there was some intelligence to their actions.

Hmm. Need to think this one through.

Maybe repair/replace lost static defense? Not static d that scvs or probes build but I'm assuming that each team will start with pre-placed static d.

All defenses are things that probes/scvs can build. The preplaced ones are just especially tough. You'd have to manually replace those.

But now that you mention it, I want this to be more about mech fighting than building. Maybe adding a way to regenerate fallen defenses with triggers (at some cost) isn't a bad idea. Not sure about using scientists for it, though.