Copied from General

[Tessai]

On the other hand, I NEED CONCEPT ART STUFFS!
hehe.. oops. Anyway, I'm getting back up from my reformat, and have the QO a good 95% back to where it was before, just need to do some moving and scaling work on the legs, but since you said you were doing a little re-working of them, I think I'll hold off.  Begining to get a weapon design for an assault rifle, except it follows more closely to SG's energy weapon design than your FASTgun. I've also been giving Mecha customization some more thought, and what if we were to make it more similar to Mechwarrior than Axis - Meaning, other than weapons, we don't need to change models on the player, but we can still change things on the mecha. While I personally don't see the point in individual armor amounts for different hit locations, I can see doing a "Full mecha" armor amount. Also, to go with the coolant plans, why not make it so that instead of "Tons" we use something like "PSI of coolant", in other words, how much coolant is directed to different systems from the s-0 reactor.  More coolant in the armor would make it freeze more, causing it to become harder( resistant to ballistics) and colder (resistant to heat- ex: lasers, plasma, ect.). More coolant to the weapons would make them cool off faster, allowing a higher rate of fire.

[Planerunner]

Concept art will be forthcoming again soon. My trianing ends on the 26th (next friday), so you should be getting some more in about a week and a half.

[Tessai]

Yay! Maybe I should poke at SG some. Or learn to map

[Planerunner]

Also, I thought I should mention some ideas here. As well as having some ideas for storyline, one of the things we wanted to focus on for the mod was

A: keep it simple

B: arm the mecha to the gills from the beginning

C: gameplay, gameplay, gameplay.

A- this has now changed: we can't keep it simple, we just need to keep it managable. Adding a weapon management system beyond Quake type 'hit 3 for shotgun, hit 4 for4 gatling' will kill us - it has to be coded and it will likely more than double our already obscene development time. In short, we're replacing the weapons in SS, we don't have the time right now to invent an inventory system.

I'll more than admit it's a cool idea, but this is a mod, not a full fledged game, and unless we can pull a couple of hardcore coders willing to work pro bono for us it's too much.

B- How about this for an idea. In Starcraft, for example, each character is given a different type of weapon. 'Spellcasting' type characters have different 'spells' or passive abilites. I think we ought to go with this for the mecha. In other words, each mecha has it's own weapons and abilities. Make the Goad a ground based stealth sniper with fantastic ground speed. Make the QO an air-based missile platform with excellent maneuverability. Make the Vixen a heavy air capable brawler. Make the Sazabi a martial arts maniac with incredible close in and short range attacks and excellent armor with moderate speed.

C- I've noticed something about inventory systems and coolant/heat systems . . . they rock for tabletop and strategy games with lots and lots of units, or turn based game play. But ever since Mechwarrior I hated adding heat into the mix. It just made no sense and it hurt gameplay SO much. If I can help it, the player's mecha should:
-have a large weapon loadout from the beginning. A mecha is not armed with a knife and a pistol.
-No heat. no coolant. no energy requirements in game play, only in storyline (I have to get a new reactor or my cause is lost, so off I go into the abandoned starcruiser level). It should not be in gameplay just because Battletech has heat levels. We're not Btech, and we're going to set some more common sense game play limitations. More on this later.

Frankly, I want us to get experience modding with Sam, get a version of CAZ going with it, then do what we REALLY want with an engine like Unreal II or one or the other up and comers. They look really nice, and the point of having easy to use editing tools seems to have sunk in to the industry - give us the tools to mod or the community dies.

Sam is a good engine, and it'll do for modding (if they can make it somewhat managable to get a model in game), so I can't wait to see what Croteam does NEXT.

[Tessai]

Ok, I wasn't really going for heat as a major part of gameplay, but more of an explanation for why things happen.  The coolant is from our idea of the s-0 fusion reator, which would be REALLY cold, and therefore could be pumped elsewhere for other uses.  I wasn't thinking of a full-fledged inventory, just a way to add optimizations, basically just have a weapon select, and then speed/armor upgrades. Although class based would be a lot easier. I'm mainly throwing these ideas out to you guys for future things, I'm keeping the small alpha in mind, but we really need to know what will go in eventually. Besides, just because its a mod, does NOT mean it cannot be game quality. I personally wouldn't mind bargaining with Croteam to work out some sort of deal to get CAZ a full game, something like we give them a certain percentage of the profits instead of paying upfront for a license. All this after we get well into the betas, of course. Also, about the sazabi, I'm scared.  Just today I was thinking of how to focus gameplay onto melee, because, lets face it, who actually uses melee in games that offer guns?  I started to sketch out a mecha that we well armored, yet mobile. I used Samurai Armor as kind of a guideline, and it began to look like a Gundam. Sazabi would be perfect. I'm picturing it like a barbarian out of Diablo II or something, a battle-axe in each hand, a sword on his back. Tough and strong, yet agile for his size. Yeah baby.

[Serious Grandpa]

Well, i'm only going to tell that i've been playing around with Serious Modeller and SEditor and i haven't encountered user friendlier game tools than SM snd SE. Animating and iporting player models shouldn't be hard when the SKA comes out. And here's the product of my modelling, UV mapping, skinning and importing to SM:

[Planerunner]

Frankly . . . my ideal goal is to make a mecha simulator, but one that seems sensible and balances gameplay. I agree T, collant or energy or fuel, I guess you could call it (I prefer energy, myself), wouldn't be a bad idea. Have some form of energy or coolant management that impacts gameplay but isn't something that requires you to cease fire or stop moving because you 'overheated'. I'd personally like something that causes your weapons to fire at a really slow rate or your energy weps to suddenly go half power. You can still fight, but not as well (so people can't fire a gatling energy gun into infinity with no consequence, for example)

In other words a passive effect that doesn't stop you, but it can still be felt and it's something you still have to plan for.

As for the Sazabi and the like, each mecha should have a specialty or strength and emphasis people to take certain mecha on certain maps. In a flat, wide open environment, take the QO (airborne missle platform), hilly take Goad (fast sniper). For jungle or levels with lots of clutter, take the close combat oriented Sazabi. For urban, tech complex, or assault type levels, take the Vixen. Stuff like that. Just a thought anyway.

Frankly, I dunno if it's a good idea to make the Sazabi a close-combat oriented mecha. Mebbe we just want to give each mecha an emphasis instead of solid role. Say, everyone has weps that can reach all ranges, each just has weps that are better in some situations than other mecha's. Like say the QO's missiles are better than everyone else's. Again, justa thought

SG, I could kiss you. Actually, it's SO good to hear the editor can work if Croteam just gets it working right. And yeah, SE should win an award for how easy it is to use. I LOVE that map editor. It's also gotten me to thinking (boy, I can ramble, can't I?) on scale more. Once we can start getting player models in game I want to experiment with player scale. Mebbe not make the player the size of Ugh-zan, but something in between. I think it will really help offset the feeling of being a human in a mecha suit feeling.

Any ideas on this?

[Tessai]

All good ideas, PR. Lets see, as far as player scale goes, that CAN be all up to the mapper.... If you map "human" areas about ankle high, you are going to seem big. If you map a forest, and all the trees are chest high, you will seem big. (on a side note, I'd definately like to see the trees explode if you walk into them ). I think that the mecha should have roles, but they shouldn't be too specific. To quote Ghost in the Shell, "To overspecialize is to kill yourself." Or something like that. For example, the QO would have missles flying everywhere, but missles can be dodged. So, it should also have a decent assault rifle so it can still pick off other mecha with some accuracy. The Sazabi could have a shield, and it be the only one, to deflect energy and bullets, and the shield could have a slow-firing, yet trong gun on it, so it can still have a bit of distance.  Missles are dodgeable, like I said before, so the shield won't have any effect on them.

Once again I'm amazed by Sam's engine. go load up the first level (starts with an h, but I'm not going to even attempt to spell it), and instead of going through the level, turn around, and walk down that walkway that leads into the sand. Might want to load up some cheats, because it will spawn some Biomechs. When you get out to the tree way out there, turn back around and look at the building you started on. Its way back there. Not only that, but it is set into the rock, and the rock is nicely chisled out and looks almost real. Not only that, but you have this huge area, and the openness doesn't even harm your framrates.

Now, about having the mecha starting out armed to the teeth, this may not be too good gameplay-wise. I mean, if someone has an unlimited supply of bullets, but only has to pause to change clips, they could run around the whole level firing, and dominate. I'd say that we give clips, but there are a lot of bullets in these clips, and you get about 4 of them. You can fly back to your launch pad, and be ressupplied.

I had a funky idea for respawns, as well. Kinda out there, might be hard to do, but I don't know how else we would do them.  When your mecha is destroyed, your control area is ejected as a small aircraft, and it uses autopilot to fly back to your resupply area, where you are issued another mecha. These pods cannot be shot down, and the time it takes to get back to your base would be the penalty.  If you just respawned after you died,  a lot of people would just go kamikaze. I don't know. We need another team doc, thats for sure.

ok, i've rambled enough now, hope you had fun reading all that.