Is it/Will it be possible to add mod features such as: - aura/area effects (e.g. a power plant powering only nearby buildings, a cloaking field, a shield field) - unit shields - custom (armor type/weapon type) damage "matrices" - hand-to-hand weapons (actually, I'd love a commander with a giga-sword or chainsaw or light saber) - dynamically affecting terrain textures : burning trees, modifying decals (burning grass ?), laying out new decals (e.g. having a creep slowly covering the terrain around a building) - dynamically affecting terrain height map - dynamically adding/removing terrain features (mountains or other "doodads") The implicit question behind the above points is: Will it be possible to make custom games with elaborate modifications to the game mechanics, as can be seen in Starcraft 2 or Warcraft 3: DOTA style maps with locked camera, FPShooter, RolePG, and basically anything than can be scripted provided the right "hooks and events" are exposed by the game engine ? I'm already dreaming about a game mode where you're in the head of the Commander and play a FPS/RPG mix like Battlezone :twisted: .
>Aura/Area Effects Supcom had weapons that could apply Buffs and Debuffs, so a hacky weapon could be made which creates a large AoE explosion every few seconds which refreshes the Buffs and Debuffs to every unit in the area. I know some MOBAs do this for auras. >Unit Shields Requires a shield object to be scripted, but shouldn't be too hard. It's just an object with radial collision, which is about twice as easy to do as an object with a collision mesh. >Custom damage & armor Possible if you have access to projectile/weapon blueprints and the TakeDamage/Damage functions of units. >hand-to-hand weapons An AoE weapon with a range of about 1, with badass animations, which may cause the enemy unit to sync to the animations as well. >Dynamically affecting terrain Uber's system allows you to apply an infinite amount of decals with no hit to performance. A planet is actually a base layer with a bunch of decals applied onto it. >Dynamically affecting terrain heightmap A planet has no heightmap! Just geometry, and the Planet Generator generates new geometry on the spot, so this is probably possible. >dynamically adding/moving terrain features See above.
Would it be possible to create roads? Really looking foward to creating a Settlers type mod Mixed with city building elements and Ofcourse rts elements. Also more resources like wood stone weat.
Roads could be done with resourceful use of the flow fields, with a weight of 0% on roads and a weight of 50%+ on regular terrain. You could also have units travel faster on low-cost terrain like roads, assuming there is an interface for cost. Extra resources would require access to feature generation and army code, both of which we will probably have access to.
You'll probably have to code that yourself, but it shouldn't be too hard. Just some path drawing, decals and blending.
