Unit Possession - FPS Style

It would be fantastically uber to be able to take direct control of units fps-style... to storm the front lines, in the 1st-person view of a 30ft tall robot, with a massive army and witness the awesome carnage face-first. You could setup command ques to 'repeat' while you're in direct control of units, so your flow of machines for the grinder never misses a beat. Would be pretty sweet to split-screen the 1st-person view and command-view across two monitors, too... but that's reaching a bit.

If this is something the devs have in mind, I welcome it solely for the fact that it is very different and could prove exciting. However, I can also see there being many, many, disadvantages to using this mode in a fast and largely scaled RTS such as this.

Also, there is a game that does something similar to this, though it's not of the same genre as [Planetary Annihilation].

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sptTe8BF3kM

The spring engine has this function which was pretty neat, although it proved to be useless.

Dungeon Keeper also did it before.

It's never been done for a reason.

Actually, it has been done before.
And it was awesome.

They did it in an old RTS called Machines: Wired for War, by Acclaim.
Barely works in XP anymore, but you might get it to work in win7 with some effort (if you can even find it!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMYeyT-37Mw&feature=fvst
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxCaE1qq ... ure=relmfu

First-person was even a big part in attacking the enemy, as most structures could be entered by units, and some others even required it to work.

Well. in Machines:Wired for war (love that game, to this day have it with its fan-made XPpatch on my drive) the fp controll was more of a gimmick where the only real advantage you had was slightly longer range and the occasional entering of a building which gave you... well hardly anything special except being less vulnerable, and thats only with small units in a few buildings

In practicallity i think its better to just keep the game to RTS. afterall i doubt anyone will have the time to manually control one of their units while 100 hundreds of units are already moving on their own and a few hundred more should be queud up in the factories.
unless you got plenty of spare time inbetween (which you rarely have in macro-management rts games) its just not worth it.

I don't think this will add anything to the game. I don't get why you would want to muddy the water with a feature like this. If the game ends up anything like the pre-vis video, the fps element would kill the fun. It's supposed to be war on a galactic scale right? So why would you want to limit yourself to the perspective of one lone unit.

... for the challenge? It would be fun to taking control of the acu (commander) in a firefight xD.

But yea, the function while fun in some situations would most likely be useless (as in, you most likely wouldent bother using it if you wanna win).

On the other hand, if they do it well (like units controlled gets a slight boost in turning speed and simular, so you can be more effective then a uncontrolled unit) it might even have some use (for example commander survival).

But i feel like it shouldent be a prioritised addition, just something they add for fun if they get some spare time.

You are probably looking for Dysis

I don't think this feature will add much to PA, as it's not it's goal, but Dysis is probably more what you're looking for.

:shock: A robot rts (seems somewhat TA inspired in style atleast) and minecraft hybrid? I dont know how to process this information.

Definately not more than a gimmick in this game, just wanted to let him know it does exist
i mean, it would be epic to take direct control of a "Galactic Colossus"-like unit and sweep lasers over your enemy, but not required in this game.

Thanks for the heads-up on Dysis and Machines:Wired For War!

Damn, we actually got people searching the forum for a few days... I guess it was too much to hope that would last. We've had a thread on this idea before, the general reaction was similar to this one (a mix of 'nope, bad idea' and 'maybe could be fun... but it's not a good fit for a game on PA's scale'). If you want a modern RTS/FPS hybrid try Natural Selection 2. Haven't played it myself, but it's gotten some good press and is exactly the mix you're interested in.

History repeats itself!

Happens on all forums, i think you'd be better off ignoring it, as it probably never changes.
Besides, i wouldn't search an entire forum just to know if there was already a topic on this before participate in a discussion.

Why not? You wouldent have to search it manually scrolling down every page, there is a search function.

No. This would encourage micro-management.

Dude.... This is an RTS, and a FPS... If you wanna take control of a 30+ foot tall robot, and look through its cockpit, go play Mechwarrior.

This has already been discussed.

It's not a good idea for this type of game. If you're interested in that then you should look at Dysis (another kickstarter project that got funded).

FPSRTS

I actually really loved Machines: Wired for War

The FPS was more of a tool for fine tuning what you shoot at or effective scouting.

Also for the spy bots it was quite useful.

If they brought it out for PA (Which i'm not really bothered about either way tbh) I'd hope it was just the commander as that should be the only unit you actually care about... All the rest go into the grinder