Ideas for Map Objects

[MrVulcan]

Hi folks

So far, we're replaced all of the stock map objects with fancier versions of themselves, but we feel that there is a lot more potential to making maps dynamic and intractable. We're thinking of making stuff like:

- destructible asteroids, or asteroid that you can tractor out of an asteroid field and toss at your enemy
- a variety of space objects that impact a variety of effects on passing starships (not just nebula, but space distortions, fog clouds, ancient space probes... etc)
- planets that you can "colonize" and/or mine for dilithium
- a larger set of nebula that can have any combination of effects.

Now, we want your input. What are some of your ideas for Future Tense maps. We want to make them much more engaging. Think on other RTS games, and not only the space strategy games. Can always find ideas, and any ideas (even the apparently impossible ones) are welcome.

[MrC_921]

Going to your "ancient probe" idea - these probes could send out weird signals that do strange things to your ships. For example, they could send signals that interfere with your systems; weapons could be disabled or less effective, sensors are disabled, etc. There could be different probes types; some send out harmful signals while others send out helpful signals. The helpful probes could increase weapon efficiency, give your ships extra shields, or something like that.

Space distortions could do something similar, but I would think that these would be more likely to do harmful things to your units than good things.

Maybe some maps could have derelict stations that offer certain bonuses. What about a special "starbase" unit that perhaps has no weapons, but somehow it has a higher crew recruitment rate than the standard bases? I know that crew recruitment is determined by the individual races' odf files, but perhaps another tactical bonus would be suitable.

Those are some of my ideas, anyway.

Cheers,
MrC

[Dell]

space distortion: makes me think of ENTERPRISE during the reptilian season. Some subspace ripples that acted as wormholes. But for example, FT mapq will be huger from what i remember, and wormholes can be set to destroy themselves after usage. (or wormholes that do damage to to shields/crew)

An idea i had in the past was some combo of the moon maker weapon in combo with self destruct. The moon maker weapon would release a wave that creates a moon. Same with self destruct. it leaves debry behind that could be minned. Same goes for wrecked ship version that are to far gone to be used as derelict, but could be minned. I Never got the debry thingy to work back then.

and alien stations (none playable races) like a superweapon. Low on shielding but with a vast range and 1hit K.O. for ships and critical damage to starbases, and a recharge cycle of 1 minute. Should be well balanced as it should be easy to take out.
Same idea but with alien crew aboard and supershielding and lower fire power (could destroy a destroyer, not a cruiser). Just an extra foe. AI must ignore this station though or at least give it a very low priority.
An alien derelict upgrade station. All races can use it, to attach cloacking devices. worthless to romulans nevertheless.
Alien station without crew with an automated computer override.
or alien station with holding beam effect. Except it shouldn't actually dissable engines. Thinking about that alien repair station in enterprise where Mayweather(? right name?) was used as a human computer. Assimilation ratio should need to be pretty low, so it would hardly have any effect on the gameplay, but adds something real to the universe.

And ofcourse a working omega particle that actually does the damage it promises. Limited range, and if possible same principle for moon maker, only it creates a large nebula that disables weapons and sensors to mimic the disturbance effect. nebula shouldn't have an SOD, just needs to cover an area. I believe selfdestruct in these nebulas works, so that would be the way to go to win when the enemies last ship is inside the disturbance field.

[Phantom]

OMEGA:
May work but from memory, it destabalizes subspace making warp travel impossible. This could work if we can find a way of stopping the warp bubble from forming around the said ship

ANCIENT PROBE:
I like the ancient probe idea that could cause mixed signals, perhaps a hybrid of the nanites. The transmission confuses the player controls. Not sure how it'd effect non-automated units though...

WORMHOLES:
From memory they don't like modding but I'll look into it


I still like the idea of the Nexus Energy Ribbon but think someones forgotten that one


Adam,

[MrVulcan]

Thanks everyone for ideas. Definitely will consider everything.

I was also thinking of other strategy games, entirely unrelated to space or star trek. The few others I played had things like:

- Territories (beneficial effects to your units while in your territory, and/or negative effects to enemy units on your territory)
- Map treasures that unlock some benefit like increased resource rates, or secret technology. You'd have to be the first one to find it or capture it to unlock the "treasure"
- Some way of hiding your units behind obstacles. This happens in star trek a lot too like hiding your ship inside an asteroid field, or planet atmosphere.

Can't say whether all of these can be applied in armada, but who knows. At this point I'm still collecting ideas

Anyone remember interesting strategies or map elements that you've seen in other games like age of empires, star craft, rise of nations, total war series, etc? Post away

[Dell]

Hi, i was just thinking about something.
So i presume that for the different ship classes/stations you might have 2 or more models out of which the final model is chosen.

Now if i'm correct the odf files are written in c++ language?

SO wouldn't that allow you to create some random number generator that randomly selects a different model? I know there's a parameter that allows you to use a SOD file with a different filename then odf filename.

Wouldn't it be an idea to have a shipyard (be it a map object to an alien race) that allows you to build ships that look slightly different?
Or maybe use it to and make it 1/1000 chance to build an original star trek armada model for that ship/station?

I don't know if anything like this has ever been attempted.

I think you couldn't make it work for complete seperate configurations for the different models as the game probably wouldn't know what to show in the tooltips for resource requirements, but for weapons and sod it could possibly work.