Well, I've had some fun ideas with all the different things that have come up, like tsunamis, plant life, and the like. So I was wondering, how do people think the world should evolve? I've listed a few ideas (well, as many as you can have in a poll ), and you guys can pick what you want, don't want, and in a few cases be more specific. Anyway, here's a brief description of the choices; I can change some of the choices (if the forum allows it) if people want. Forests While I'm not sure if the purpose of forests other than a resource has been decided yet. Maybe it'll block units paths until burned down/blown apart, maybe it can hide units, or maybe it'll just be there for the resource and that's it. Don't really care, up to you guys to decide, but would anyone like forest spread and regrowth (seeds can survive underground after a fire)? I never like how fast TA and SupCom lost all its vegetation. At the same time, the planet should start feeling more barren as the world gets destroyed. So maybe terrain destroyed by explosions, or flooded with water or lava (should either be possible) wouldn't allow plant growth while other land does? Also, if you think this is a nice idea, how fast do you think it should spread? Volcanoes Next up, how about volcanoes? Maybe have someway of creating them (like drilling to the molten core or something). I can think of a lot of useful things for them, such as: an extra source of energy, being a hazard to nearby units (potentially made as a weapon), burning down forests that grow too close, and maybe even having it create brand new land! Any ideas? Water/Flooding Finally, how should water behave? As something that can actually be affected? Should it be able to flood low ground? So a tsunami would leave behind new lakes? Or destroying a hill between a valley and a sea resulting in an inlet? Actually, just got another idea. Drying up oceans..... Really wish this forum let me make 11 poll choices Let me know if I should swap some things around, or combine something. Anyway, if you read all that, thanks If you don't want any of it, just vote no to each thing. I'd love to hear everyone else's opinions too, not just random voting.
I like the idea of "active" planets instead of a too static status quo. The question here would be, if it's possible to find a sensible time scale in the limited time frame of a game. Some of the effects like the flooding (and similar) could also be used as secondary effects from let's say less lethal planetary annihilation. e.g. not complete destruction just cause for earthquakes, flooding etc but I'm getting a bit of topic.
Why is it off topic? Weapons as you listed would have everything to do with "active" planets. Actually, maybe I should rename this thread from "Evolving" planets to "Active" ones. What do you think?
The idea of forest hiding units is cool, but I dunno. Tanks would flatten trees. Second I would like to see planets having clouds, something the concept trailer didn't have. And some stormy rain clouds that slow down units.
As far as planets evolving/changing during play. I do believe it's already confirmed terrain will be destroyed (correct me if I'm wrong) if not that'd be the #1 thing I'd like to see. That and the ability to terraform it back to how it was (like Zero-k, but maybe less emphasis on terrain manip) Apart from that, forests growing? meh could do without, and the particle creep would probably be resource intensive for med to lower range pc's. Volcanoes and flooding are probably doable but should be player interaction based unless there are distinctly tidal worlds and volcanic worlds, and player structures had a direct easily manageable defense against said effects.
What about 20 mile high mega-tree forests for tricky enclosed combat? Not destructible by anything less than a nuke/krogoth type-o'-thing.
Fighting in the forest world of endor? sounds entertaining but also sounds like something that wouldn't be in initial release of the game. Keep extreme (ly awesome) planet types to mods or stretch goals/post launch?
I'm not sold on this idea. Might add a little too much to the game. Events would need to happen regularly, like tides. Anything that may randomly hurt/benefit a player shouldn't be added to the game. I'm on a fairly low-end PC, so my main concern is that these would reduce performance too much. Tides: Yes (if we get the naval, which should happen). Opens up some nice strategies with ships moving through a flooded area to surprise attack something, or land units using a sandbar to attack/retreat/move across a lake. Volcanoes: Maybe. This seems like one of those annoying events, rather than something that will benefit the game. Would make planets much more unique though, with some being more volcanic than others. Forest Growth: Maybe. Unless it offers something beyond visuals, there's not much point. It would be awesome to see a ravaged planet slowly repopulate with plants though. Volcanic Land: No. Seems like something that would just eat up performance and take up too much development time, while not offering much to the game.
Yes, terrain being destroyable was one of the first things confirmed about this game, which is why explosions destroying land is not even an option on this poll. Never said anything about random events. No volcanoes popping up out of nowhere. No random tsunamis, no ground blowing itself up. All the things I listed would be player influenced, apart from forest growth, which would grow at a steady rate, thus not being random. Plus, one of the options is to influence where it can no longer grow. Something I was thinking about too. I'm just hoping that Uber will consider it, and see if they can't think of a performance efficient way of adding this. Persoanlly, I don't see any of this other than tree growth affecting performance all that much, and even trees performance would depend on how the spread was programmed, and how detailed they would be. Nothing to say. Fully agree. Annoying? Remember, none of what I said is random. Maybe some planets would come with volcanoes, but lava would flow continuously, not randomly, and would not start next to player spawns, nor would volcanoes appear randomly. I was saying having them created by players through special weapons/units, unless they where there before the match even started. It would definitely look cool, but I agree, it would need to have a purpose, and I can think of several (hiding units, energy, blocking paths). [/quote] This is something I'm not sure whether I want myself (sort of do), but I added it because I know there are other people who would want it. Plus, it would definitely add a lot to the game, as it would create new playing fields. It would need some sort of limit though, so that they don't keep renewing the land you are destroying. After all one of the main ideas of this game is to destroy planets.
I don't like forest growth when we're talking about earth-like flora... but maybe on a harsh alien jungle-world it would work. (I didn't vote for any forest stuff because of this)
Except terraforming is already in the game. I don't think that adding the features I mentioned would take very long to implement at all. Tree growth could be as simple as "Can trees grow here? If no, have no trees spread there. If yes, how fast do they appear?". I don't see any challenges in that. The hardest thing might be to make tree growing animations, if they would even bother with that. As for water, well, if they plan on making tsunamis if we get naval units anyway, flooding might already be possible without any additional programming. Volcanoes? Well, they can behave like a giant stationary unit. Again, it would be as hard as just making 1 new unit. Not sure how hard creating new land from them would be though.
