In the real world how to troops get orders? They communicate. That is why in the real world we have cell phone towers, communication satellites, and etc. I know this is the future and all but I do not believe any death robot army would be completely autonomous for some fairly logical reasons, such as: if they were truly autonomous why do they need to be given orders? So I am proposing a new in-game element, communication. How would it work, well your commander would have a range it which it could communicate with its troops, but to keep your troops in comm distance you wouldn't send your commander into the heat of a battle. (Well, at least I wouldn't) To keep communication with them you would need a comm building. (Not a phone tower preferably.) Your comm buildings would be strategically located to provide comm. with your troops all over a said planet. They would be fairly obvious targets to remove quickly because they allow your opponent to comm with his or her troops. Sure the troops could be ordered to leave a known comm area to a dead area, and the troops would move through it because once they enter a dead area they would follow the last commands given to them until they can do nothing else and then they will just stop. Even your in-game UI that allows give commands for those units would disappear once they enter the dead zone because you can not give them commands anymore. For those interplanetary comm use could some form of comm satellite, causing the need to control orbital regions around planets, or some form of narrow high frequency comm lines from a ground based operation. So that is my proposed idea, and I would like to hear your guys' opinions on it because I feel this feature could add some very interesting game play.
This seems like a solution searching for a problem to me. Could you elaborate on what type of gameplay this might create? The best I got is that it would cause players to only be able to operate in areas where they have communications infrastructure. This will force players to creep overland towards each other in order to fight. And units which leave communications range would effectively be non-entities unless they are either somewhat intelligent on their own, or communications can be re-established. I think we need more details about the nature of the communications system you suggest, and you should also explain the type of gameplay you think would emerge from it.
Yeah.. the idea seems to assume that units are really dumb, so if they lose communications they stop being effective. Unfortunately that will end up being more irritating for the player than beneficial (dammit just drove my tanks out of range.. no stop nooo noo arrgh *bangs head*)
Well for one when a unit leaves comm range it continues its last action until completion. Ex. Scenario Player A and B are on opposite sides of a planet. Player A decides to expand outward so he sends an engineer out of comm with the order to build a comm tower/building. Even though the engineer is outside the comm range it is following its order to construct. So it does so, if the building was not a comm structure, then when it was completed the engineer would now hibernate until comm are reestablished, but it is comm structure that when finished boosts the comm range to that area so the engineer can once again receive commands. So later Player A and B have expanded around the world are having small skirmishes on the equator between them, quickly withdrawing to nurse their wounds after each raid. Player B realizes that one of Player A's comm structures is not very far so he focus all his forces on a raid there. Player A tries to defend said comm structure by sending nearby forces to help. B fends them off, and eventually reaches said comm structure. When the comm structure is destroyed A's troops who are now in the dark in that area continue there last command which was to defend the comm structure so they march on to their inevitable end. Player A could send more troops into the dark to try to stop the invasion or he may conduct a counter-invasion of his own. So A tries the counter-invasion and manages to take out some comm station behind the bulk of B's forces severing their connection with command. B however expected something like this and sends fresh reinforcements from his main base and take out Player A's troops. B rebuilds his comm stations and order his main forces who are now reconnected with command and orders the final raid. Is rather similar to the events I would expect to see because they are structures that would be extremely necessary, but always under attack because they allow one to control troops further from their hub and closer to yours.
I see what you mean there, but it would force players to plan ahead and expect what is going to happen especially when leaving comm range.
At that point you might as well play a "programming" strategy game like Gratuitous Space Battles, I'm just not seeing the appeal to be honest. Mike
I have two large concerns about this mechanic. First, what about communications facilities being sniped? This could be catastrophic, causing a player to lose control of a large number of units at an important area. This could potentially cause a player to completely lose control of their most important area or army, which would be no end of frustrating, and only adds the tactical option of sniping communications structures. Second, the fact that you can just build one of these things anywhere seems to remove itself from the equation, except for purposes of getting sniped. An engineer with orders to build outside of communications is identical to an ordinary SupCom engineer, with the one exception that you can't change its orders. Which doesn't seem like that consequential of a change in terms of gameplay, but hugely inconvenient in UI and player experience terms. MMORTS I think theoretically this mechanic makes a lot more sense as a "theatre size limiter" in a potentially unlimited-size MMORTS. RTS over an unlimited size map is technologically impossible today, due to hardware and network limitations. But if the size of a "map" was restricted to a communications radius around a commander, then that player only needs to view and update that area. This radius would be very large, and might increase as hardware and network specs rise. A "command" unit count limit would also be very important to limit system resource consumption per player within that area, but would also be as large as the day's technology could sustain.
This sort of feature is in Total War. I love Total War. But I always turn this feature off because it's really obnoxious. It doesn't make the game more fun, it just makes you frustrated because your units can't be ordered and they are really dumb because AI in games sucks compared to a human, and because being powerless to do something isn't fun.
This does not seem like a good idea to me, it would make the comm tower the most valuable target in the game. If I were an autonomous future robot death commander, I would use quantum entanglement to communicate with my peons anyway.
This has one legitimate use. A player needs access to everything they can see, otherwise it wouldn't be truly visible. That awareness comes at the cost of bandwidth from the server. The difference can be huge. Just imagine a game between 40 players with fog of war, and one without! A comm range allows you to limit the effective "maximum vision" a player has to view the map. By restricting the player's max vision, you effectively restrict the maximum bandwidth they need to view it. I don't mean to have the vision limit small. Rather, it should be as large as the home user's technology will allow. I'm referring to a singular max vision of half a dozen whole planets, across a game map that might have a hundred worlds. Those active choices are easily changed by moving the Commander around (creating a separate issue of active units and bases operating outside player range). Players that need more vision and control area, simply need to trust the other players and Commanders on their team.
There are two problems with this element. The first is it's sort of new. The RTS formula is rather well known and understood by both developers and players. Any variation from that causes people to knee-jerk react poorly. Even if the idea is a good change. Second is that idea is sort of in most RTS games with out the part that people would get very frustrated with. Radar or the like is in most games limiting your field of vision on the map. Various units or buildings even counter act radar to limited degrees. The only difference I can see in this and limiting the range and amount of radars you can put on a map is the idea that without seeing your units we as commanders are unable to control them in the same way or at all. Taking our control away for any reason is a poor idea and one that gets players frustrated the fastest. Which is why powers or abilities that stun or disable units are generally prevented from effecting the commander units and have limited effect on the others.
Granted, the single player RTS formula has been understood and done very well for quite some time. The large scale, multi map, team RTS formula has been largely unexplored. The types of limitations we're coming across are one of hardware limitations, and one of human limitations. A limited range of influence can absolutely help address hardware limits, while still being far beyond any human limit. In terms of gameplay, it means that your Commander has to always be somewhere in the vague vicinity of where the action is. It can make Comm hunts easier, and prevent situations where Comms are kept safely tucked away on the most distant backwater asteroid.
