Art style and capturing the 'alien cyber city' feel

I was thinking this morning about the aesthetic 'style' of the bases you end up with in PA, and for that matter most large scale RTS's. They certainly can sprawl out and look vast, but you do tend to end up with a random set of squarish buildings with tanks parked everywhere and AA/towers randomly placed. When you think about scifi movies and how a funky robot city would look, I had a few thoughts on how we could make the building and layout aesthetics 'next level' just like the gameplay is, while preserving or enhancing gameplay.

Thoughts:

a) 'Joining' of adjacent factories. If you put 4 of the same type together, they could 'link' visually so you've got one big vehicle factory with multiple exits. Perhaps it could confer a minor benefit too so people bother to do it; the nanolathe guns could run along the whole row of fab platforms, so if you're only building one thing all the nanolathes slide along to that one platform.

b) High rise: Perhaps things like power stations can be taller and actually look lit-up, or you could build them two or three layers tall. It would look cool, again perhaps you could receive a small benefit in power generated vs not stacking, but to counteract that benefit, it's more vulnerable to blow up in one go.

d) Shape of buildings. Things are largely square now for understandable reasons; it'd be good for visual diversity to have more variance. Eg the air factories may be long and narrow with runways. This would subtly nudge players to place them in a grouped location which would improve base appearance too.

e) Defining major pathways for unit flow. Instead of units just driving between the dozens of obstacles in a base to get to point x, perhaps you could lay 'tarmac' through lines in your base. Similar to walls they would be fairly low cost. Benefits: a) Using the existing flow fields they could be a bit lower 'cost' and encourage units to path via them if you've built some; b) Units could move slightly faster on them to encourage their use - handy for responding to an attack more quickly; c) reduce pathing issues; d) it would make you think a bit harder about the overall 'layout' of your base on the terrain so you can lay a couple of these through the centre of your base. Overall, it'd make it look more 'base like' and add to the visual appeal.

c) Repurposing walls: existing walls take a while to place; I imagine there's a current plan to allow you to drag a 'line' of spaced walls (or indeed other buildings) which will help. Could we have larger 'towers' you could place every x units of wall, which could have connecting laser lines between them. More importantly these towers could be of various types - eg build an AA, anti land tower, radar module on top of the existing ones. You could continue to add modules on top of them of more AA/anti land etc. Benefits would be i ) everyone can clearly see how tall/ hence how powerful each tower is at a given time; ii) less crowding and pathfinding around the base; iii) modular approach means bases will look more diverse.

Similarly, being able to build AA's a few layers high would save space and avoid pathing issues.


Well that's my manifesto. Using one of more of these would definitely take PA's appearance even further beyond the conventions we've seen in RTS's since day dot!

Cheers

This isn't Sim Base.

It's okay if people tend to end up with a random set of squarish buildings.

This.

I don't care about how my base looks, so long as its spitting out tanks at the speed of light and isn't exploding.

And I'm a digital artist XP

I'm surprised at these responses, I think it's a really progressive idea for RTS's. Probably not practical for the tight development budget of PA, and definitely not in the spirit of the kickstarter, but still has the potential to really set a game apart.

It's more suited to a slower-paced game like Warzone 2100, where you keep the same base for ages as the map expands. Man, I wish there'd be a kickstarter for a modern day warzone.

Remember that stuff is the way it is because of reasons. PA's bases are disordered because there aren't any complex base building rules to follow (except the natural law of defenses on the outside, then factories, then economy in the center), and there aren't any complex base building rules because the game is focused on the fighting and making base building like simcity would distract from that.

the thread creator should have a look at Earth 2160. What he suggests was implemented there

3 factions with different base building systems.
ED had a mainbuilding and everything else was connected to it
LC had towers where you could stack different floors.
UCS had several main buildings where you could attach up to 4 factories.

It was pretty cool looking and did work quite well. But PA isnt going that route, and thats not bad either.

Looking back at those screenshots, the graphics were ******* great in that game back that time (especially for an RTS)

You know, I keep hearing good things about Warzone 2100 and Earth 2140-2160, but you guys are the first people I've heard about them from. Are they obscure games or am I just really ignorant?

On topic: I would actually like to do something like this, just for the artsey feel of it, but none of it would affect gameplay unless it was an entirely new faction we were talking about here. Even then, a faction focused on base building would crumple and fall apart in PA's competitive environment.

They're late 90's RTS games. I guess I played a lot of them at the time but they weren't obscure, just that their day has long passed. The only reason people might still be talking about them is stuff like this thread where we talk about design theory elements, or in the case of WZ2100 you might have heard of it when the source code was released, so the whole game is free now.

Interesting diversity of responses! I definitely wasn't suggesting anything along the lines of simcity, or even creating much more focus on base planning. That's why most of the things I suggested (stacking power stations, or adjacent factories joining up) would pretty much happen without any effort from the player.

I like a good giant battle as much as anyone, but aesthetics do play a big part in a game's success. It makes for juicier screenshots in reviews, it creates more emotional connection with what you've created, and people just plain like spending time looking at something diverse and stimulating.

Every RTS since warcraft has done that with few diversions. I liked the mention of Warzone and 2160 - that latter one does ring a bell. I cant remember the buildings, but I remember you could create 'custom' units by combining different 'bases' (eg tank, spider legs) with different tops (turret, laser etc). That was a nifty modular idea too.

Anyway, glad to hear some people grokked what I was getting at. Sim city my ***!

Cheers

The problem is the connection of buildings means no space for units to walk, so it bottlenecks easier.

The only connections I see being realistic in an RTS would be the kind in SupCom- Energy trails, and such.

**** Earth 2160, it doesn't do justice to the awesome RTS games that are Earth 2140 and Earth 2150 (and all of its expos!). I started with the moon project, which was awesome.

As for the OP, no. That is to much micro for building my base. I plop down a few buildings where they are needed at the time and that is it. I need to build bases quickly so I can focus on commanding my army, which a complex set of rules for base building will take away from.

Honestly, what OP is talking about is not complex at all. What I can say is that it might shave away seconds, depending on what's going on; like whether you're panicking, or already have a massive, sprawling base with units everywhere, etc. The snapping feature would make the factory combining much easier, for example. The power generators are a bit meh since stacking them, I feel, can cause other kinds of balance problems. Maybe not, but well... :?

Anyways, it'd be very interesting if someone created a different style of play with a mod concentrated in base-building.

Nah, we're just old (or possibly just older than you are). I've been playing video games for longer than I care to recall; my first video gaming machine had them all built-in (selected by switches) rather than on cartridge

I seem to recall trying to install Earth 2160 when I rebuilt my gaming rig as Win7 a year or so back, and the activation servers weren't running any more so it refused to activate. Similarly when I (managed to) install Homeworld 2 a couple of months back after being reminded about it on here, and couldn't update it due to no update servers existing; at least it activated though XD

It's a bit disheartening having the disc of a fondly remembered game physically in your hand, but still contemplating buying a copy from GOG just so you know it'll manage to install. :cry:

I'm playing Warzone 2100 now (I love you guys, best taste in videogames in forever), and base-building focused gameplay (of the same sort as Warzone) is in my scope for mods, after I finish our custom faction. Specifically interconnecting siege walls and synergistic buildings.

However, I positively refuse to do anything remotely as terrible as Adjacency.

That's fair, adjacency is best done as a asphetic touch anyway.

Warzone is a great game, truly, but if best played as a single player game due to the games kick *** campaign.

I 100% agree with the OP. I well constructed base pleases me to build and destroy. There should be subtle incentives to do so in an organized way. Anybody who doesn't like to do it isn't forced that way but there is at least a reason to want to. It wont even be complicated if build templates are done well too. Say you have "front line base node" as a template option on your build options for T2 builders that places an extractor, air and ground defense. 2 clicks to place 3 buildings in the formation you've chosen (rotated at your discretion). You'll have a consistent and effective base effortlessly.

Another point in favor of an 'organised' base is that it makes it a LOT easier to see what is going on in your base if you have it organised. It looks awesome, and it makes it easier to play.. where is the downside for that?

A subtle push by the game to promote organised base construction would by no means be a bad thing.

I don't think there should be bonuses for making things look nice.

I prefer the original TA / Spring mechanic that ACTIVELY DISCOURAGES adjacent building (particularity power plants and alike) as they explode and chain react.

People who make beautifully designed neat and tightly packed bases are asking to get bombed.

A well designed base has gaps between power plants, or anything else that's volatile (pretty much everything) to a: allow easy unit movement and b: prevent you loosing half your base to a single bomber.

Another point for not aligning everything tightly- original TA bombers drop bombs in lines and hence could hit multiple targets if you neatly lined them up for your opponent. Now the bombers they are currently using only drop a single 'missile' rather than 'bombs' so that may not be an issue (although I would love to see TA style bombers as a unit in PA as carpet bombing a base with no AA is just epic! Perhaps the T2 bomber could do this?).

At any rate, I think the system should reward players for thinking about how things work and designing a base accordingly rather than building things in neat grids or block because its looks pretty or because there's a template for it.

Well that's just it - with instantaneous materials transport, there is no gameplay need to build close together, and the farther spread out your base is the harder it is for the enemy to hit a critical point.

It's just too bad that the 'best' type of base design is one where it looks like ****, and doesn't give the attacker ANY opportunity for a tactical strike against a group of high value targets.

basically what you guys are suggesting is civilization in rts form.

personally i would love to see that but it doesnt seem to be this game's direction.

not yet at least.