it may help. it may not . but I'm going to post this image here. same one I posted on Athena ages ago. I'm hoping it might actually get ideas pumping this time around.
image 1
http://s70.photobucket.com/user/FrozenNuke/media/Firefall/FFB_MM_PT1_zps916d155b.png.html
image 2
http://s70.photobucket.com/user/FrozenNuke/media/Firefall/FFB_MM_PT2_zps48c76795.png.html
if it too unreadable let me know. compressed file from 13.
image 1
http://s70.photobucket.com/user/FrozenNuke/media/Firefall/FFB_MM_PT1_zps916d155b.png.html
image 2
http://s70.photobucket.com/user/FrozenNuke/media/Firefall/FFB_MM_PT2_zps48c76795.png.html
if it too unreadable let me know. compressed file from 13.
This would make a great building tool but the way the terrain is layed out and how the game is designed around it could be a problem, for example, you refer to a "starting area." If you looked out from the starting area, would the landscape be boring without structures built by players? Would there be difficult to navigate mazes of player structures? and would the landscape be detailed and designed for engaging gameplay right from the start? And if it is, how many areas could realistically contain a decently sized and situated structure? There are just a lot of questions, I wouldn't do it unless I was REALLY confident that all the solutions could be found, but again i like the building tool, just skeptical of the meta-game of what you described.
So I read all these ideas you guys have been talking about, I think some of them have some decent merit. However a couple of things have been nagging at me. Something I heard Mark mention in an audio interview I listen to back in July of last year. He wanted to keep costs down, keep things simple basically. Reminded me of the old phrase "Keep it simple, stupid". So I sat, and I thought, and contemplated, and this is what I came up with:
Keeping in line with simple themes. What if bases came in three different sizes like omniframes do; Small, Medium and Large.
Keeping in line with simple themes. What if bases came in three different sizes like omniframes do; Small, Medium and Large.
- Smalls could be the size of maybe a watch tower.
- Mediums could be just big enough to use as maybe a kind of forward "frontlines" outpost.
- Larges would be used for the creation of big centralizes buildings, like a HUB. Which you could then attach, or even link small or mediums to.
Last edited:
I think there are some important bits of information that needs to first be determined: How many bases, regardless of size, is a guild allowed to build, regardless of any other types of restrictions (monetary, material, etc)? Should there be an overall size limit (Combined size/'modules' of all bases constructed)? How expensive should it be to construct and maintain the base, and build 'modules'? How far apart should they be from bases that belong to other guilds? Should a guild be able to construct 2 bases immediately next to each other?
I think these are rather important questions that will determine how the rest of the system plays out.
For example, in the project I'm working on (I'll avoid shameless plugs for now), guilds can create their own towns. They can place as many towns as they want, but each town has a fairly high setup cost, and each town increases the upkeep cost for all towns that guild controls, (town upkeep) * (number of towns controlled). Additionally, towns must be built a fairly long distance from each other, regardless of the owner, and have a maximum number of expansions that can be added (which contribute to the towns upkeep cost)
This prevents guilds from spamming towns, as the financial burden would cause towns to either 'disappear' or be bought by other guilds. Towns cannot connect with other towns to form enormously long walls. Towns themselves can only expand so much so that they themselves cannot be an enormously long wall. Towns would end up being spread out, allowing player or NPC pathing between them.
Just my 2 cents, though.
I think these are rather important questions that will determine how the rest of the system plays out.
For example, in the project I'm working on (I'll avoid shameless plugs for now), guilds can create their own towns. They can place as many towns as they want, but each town has a fairly high setup cost, and each town increases the upkeep cost for all towns that guild controls, (town upkeep) * (number of towns controlled). Additionally, towns must be built a fairly long distance from each other, regardless of the owner, and have a maximum number of expansions that can be added (which contribute to the towns upkeep cost)
This prevents guilds from spamming towns, as the financial burden would cause towns to either 'disappear' or be bought by other guilds. Towns cannot connect with other towns to form enormously long walls. Towns themselves can only expand so much so that they themselves cannot be an enormously long wall. Towns would end up being spread out, allowing player or NPC pathing between them.
Just my 2 cents, though.
Likes:
Pandagnome
All valid questions and concerns, which i'm sure will get hashed out sooner or later. But logically none of that can be answered, not until you know how the system works, at least conceptually anyway. The where, how many, and who can't be answered until you know the ins and outs of the product. You need to have the food before you can put it on the plate.
Last edited:
hmm, that's going to bring a lot of problems we saw in planetisde 2. They had to reduce the amount of single objects in the world to be able to make the game perform good fps over all. If you build brick by brick then it would take to much power to render an entire base. But if you had a list of complete style of bases only when you reach some level of sources would help keep game performing good. You just select the style you like depending on the amount of resources your guild has and the game renders the entire base as one single solid item, instead of millions of bricks. You also eliminate glitches.
Likes:
Mahdi
That's basically what I suggested earlier.
I think that the really large bases would be serverwide player support and prebuilt by the devs. Smaller guild bases could be modular but the individual building options would still be prebuilt. The small squad sized bases would be a single prebuilt structure and be temporary, so the world doesn't get clogged up with tons of little bases all over.
rough example of a medium sized guild base, initially the base is simply a single tower placed out of a guild leaders inventory. once placed the walls will automatically appear. The guild leader can then interact with the tower to pick from a list of buildings (each with their bonuses and effects and access) for each pre-selected modular building location (Note that this would allow a base to grow as there would be a large initial resource cost to make the initial tower item (at a large base) and each building would also have its own resource cost to "build"). Additionally the guild leader could pick from a number of heavy gun types to be placed on a top of the building tower which would be used for base defense events. At the corners there would be smaller weapon spots that players can build.
I think that the really large bases would be serverwide player support and prebuilt by the devs. Smaller guild bases could be modular but the individual building options would still be prebuilt. The small squad sized bases would be a single prebuilt structure and be temporary, so the world doesn't get clogged up with tons of little bases all over.
rough example of a medium sized guild base, initially the base is simply a single tower placed out of a guild leaders inventory. once placed the walls will automatically appear. The guild leader can then interact with the tower to pick from a list of buildings (each with their bonuses and effects and access) for each pre-selected modular building location (Note that this would allow a base to grow as there would be a large initial resource cost to make the initial tower item (at a large base) and each building would also have its own resource cost to "build"). Additionally the guild leader could pick from a number of heavy gun types to be placed on a top of the building tower which would be used for base defense events. At the corners there would be smaller weapon spots that players can build.
Likes:
Torgue_Joey
Generally think that the bases should be mostly of the style of prefabricated air/space droppable packages.
We are playing as a mobile faction that's lost our home planet, we make a living moving from one new enviornment to another on who knows what type of planet, terrain, or weather, looking for anything of value (often resources). So it follows that we should have some good types of buildings that can be readily set up very quickly, look like they can survive in very tough environments, and similarly can then be removed just as easily when we pack up and head home after exploring or mapping an area out.
Current things I'm thinking of...
All inhabitable buildings larger then say five meters in any dimension should be portable. Like something you can just drop down on a pair of legs and set up with no preparation required. I love me some bunkers but that doesn't fit with our factions specialty. Not to say we can't do mining, but more just tunnels and small prefab filler rooms, and even then that's iffy and not something likely to be player controlled, but prespawned based on events in limited areas (or just default part of the map).
These items can just be dropped in when the players need, relativly low budget for the most part. And if they have legs (good for buildings ment to stand on who knows what types of unprepared/foundationed terrain) then bases don't even need really flat terrain, just semi flat since each leg could change a bit to conform to the ground.
A "base" would probably consist of one relatively large core area that has some living quarters, basic omniframe parts, safe interior for dismounted players, and probably some basic auto turrets. Added onto this could be some additional rooms dropped near it connected by hallways/corridors that extend between them (secondaries can only be built immediately next to the main one). You also can only build three secondaries on each main base. The result is you can get more resources but it's weaker, or you can make it more of a player hub for your activities in the area and in exchange it doesn't produce as much itself.
Was also thinking about the main starting city/hub. I figured it should fit with the rest of the style, so I thought of a giant walking fortress type of city as the central area in each map. It has the giant facilities working on the planets environment and making the usable bubble. It's got airpads for aircraft/shuttles/whatever may be added. You can do just about anything here but get resources (except maybe from quests/bounties/etc). It's also got some big guns and do to it's shear size it pretty safe from attacks. Though while it won't be lost if it is attacked it can lose power to/take damage on some of the terraforming equipment and the maps bubble might close in a bit if that ends up being a thing.
Thinking of making some rough concepts/models of these to mess around when I have time... but I'm now up to making an omniframe core/variants, modeling two kaijus, animating one kaiju and one THMPR, and some other odds and ends, so don't expect anything too soon.
We are playing as a mobile faction that's lost our home planet, we make a living moving from one new enviornment to another on who knows what type of planet, terrain, or weather, looking for anything of value (often resources). So it follows that we should have some good types of buildings that can be readily set up very quickly, look like they can survive in very tough environments, and similarly can then be removed just as easily when we pack up and head home after exploring or mapping an area out.
Current things I'm thinking of...
All inhabitable buildings larger then say five meters in any dimension should be portable. Like something you can just drop down on a pair of legs and set up with no preparation required. I love me some bunkers but that doesn't fit with our factions specialty. Not to say we can't do mining, but more just tunnels and small prefab filler rooms, and even then that's iffy and not something likely to be player controlled, but prespawned based on events in limited areas (or just default part of the map).
These items can just be dropped in when the players need, relativly low budget for the most part. And if they have legs (good for buildings ment to stand on who knows what types of unprepared/foundationed terrain) then bases don't even need really flat terrain, just semi flat since each leg could change a bit to conform to the ground.
A "base" would probably consist of one relatively large core area that has some living quarters, basic omniframe parts, safe interior for dismounted players, and probably some basic auto turrets. Added onto this could be some additional rooms dropped near it connected by hallways/corridors that extend between them (secondaries can only be built immediately next to the main one). You also can only build three secondaries on each main base. The result is you can get more resources but it's weaker, or you can make it more of a player hub for your activities in the area and in exchange it doesn't produce as much itself.
- One might be a vehicle dock for tanks or trucks or planes/gunships.
- A storage or shuttle pad area for moving larger quantities of resources, boosts mining speeds.
- A refinery/mining complex that had a drill/tunnel that drops down from the bottom to start working.
- A reconnaissance room that is just a small room with some sensors on top that lets any player in the base automatically detect any enemies in a large area around said base (cloaked enemies may be different). You can possibly set this to auto alert all army/owning players on when a boss type enemy shows up as well. It might also be able to improve players abilities to find resource pockets for THMPRs in a larger area or other things.
- Defensive station, a building that has more powerful turrets than most, increases rate of fire or power of all attached base building turrets by a little, and also has a special mortar that can provide indirect fire on hostiles in a fairly large radius (best used with the recon room).
- Defensive turret, a tiny turret tower that has a gun, flamethrower, whatever, let players adjust them maybe. It's small and doesn't have any room inside and isn't directly attached to any other hub/building but still only is spawned in the local area. You can spawn 3 of these per defensive station you have.
Was also thinking about the main starting city/hub. I figured it should fit with the rest of the style, so I thought of a giant walking fortress type of city as the central area in each map. It has the giant facilities working on the planets environment and making the usable bubble. It's got airpads for aircraft/shuttles/whatever may be added. You can do just about anything here but get resources (except maybe from quests/bounties/etc). It's also got some big guns and do to it's shear size it pretty safe from attacks. Though while it won't be lost if it is attacked it can lose power to/take damage on some of the terraforming equipment and the maps bubble might close in a bit if that ends up being a thing.
Thinking of making some rough concepts/models of these to mess around when I have time... but I'm now up to making an omniframe core/variants, modeling two kaijus, animating one kaiju and one THMPR, and some other odds and ends, so don't expect anything too soon.
I have a concept for you.
Several large "crafts" (non-specific) fly over way up in the sky with an oversize machine/crate slung between them. When they reach coordinate (player.input) slings release. After some time this thing crashes to the surface. Impact activates/release/triggers its growth and unfolding ( transformer-ish would be top notch though something in between that and the animation used for either the old melding repulsers or sort of the chosen cannons could work).
Over next time span, animation continues to grow base basics (the minimum freebies) and anchor connection points* for upgrading amenities. Once the animation completes, for larger platforms (permanent, towns, guilds, factions, w/e...) players use the THMPR to "prep" space for major additions and receive some token toward the next space once complete and so on. Completed space can have activated drop in starter framework for amenity.
too tired to elaborate but willing if there is interest. ->typo lol[/COLOR]
Several large "crafts" (non-specific) fly over way up in the sky with an oversize machine/crate slung between them. When they reach coordinate (player.input) slings release. After some time this thing crashes to the surface. Impact activates/release/triggers its growth and unfolding ( transformer-ish would be top notch though something in between that and the animation used for either the old melding repulsers or sort of the chosen cannons could work).
Over next time span, animation continues to grow base basics (the minimum freebies) and anchor connection points* for upgrading amenities. Once the animation completes, for larger platforms (permanent, towns, guilds, factions, w/e...) players use the THMPR to "prep" space for major additions and receive some token toward the next space once complete and so on. Completed space can have activated drop in starter framework for amenity.
too tired to elaborate but willing if there is interest. ->typo lol[/COLOR]
Likes:
Pandagnome
My thought to keep buildings under control is to have a number of enemies, increasing with base size, constantly spawn near them. Something like (base diameter)*(# of objects in base)*(distance from hub/1000) spawns per 15 minutes (arbitrary numbers). The buildings on their own would quickly fall if undefended and turret placements on larger bases wouldn't be able to kill everything swarming towards it. Furthermore, to get better resources, one would need to thump further from the hub of the terraformed pocket and building a base closer to those resources would cut down on the distance the THMPR would need to travel to deposit the collected resources.
Side note: It would be interesting to be able to command the THMPR to start mining again after starting its return to base. Just don't allow it to mine within (x) distance of the nearest building.
Side note: It would be interesting to be able to command the THMPR to start mining again after starting its return to base. Just don't allow it to mine within (x) distance of the nearest building.
Likes:
Mahdi