Add Ship Boarding Combat Poll

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Should A Future X Game Allow Boarding Party Tactical/FPS Combat

Hell ya, that's an awesome idea, w00t!
64
67%
My aim sucks and I set everything on auto-turret, I'd get slaughtered in FPS combat
0
No votes
No boarding party is worth the loss of a split life!
32
33%
 
Total votes: 96

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JackScratch
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Post by JackScratch » Fri, 2. Apr 04, 22:23

A different way to do it, is the way its done in Pirates! Gold! Just you vs. the enemy captain with your 'strength' 'Endurance' and 'HitPoints' worked out by the strength of your crew compared to that of the other vessel...

Which reminds me...Sid Meyer is finally doing an updated full 3D version of Pirates. Looks pretty nifty from what I've seen. Not only are they upgrading the boarding system, but are doing a variation of those Captain vs. Captain battles where you can woo the governor's daughter through dance. Should be a complete riot.

Redjack
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Post by Redjack » Fri, 2. Apr 04, 22:36

beefsteaks wrote: Theres no reason you couldnt do X2 in an engine like the Unreal engine lets say.
It would certainly be possible, but you would have to rip out a lot of the gameplay code and write new code to have it work anything at all like a flgiht sim. X2 may have simplistic flying and combat, but codewise, I'm sure it's not much like an FPS. (This is from experience, working with the Quake engine code.)

That's the problem with implementing this idea. Whether you start with the X2 engine or an FPS engine, you'd have to write whole new gameplay code for the section the engine is missing.

You would probably be better off writing the game from the ground up with FPS and flight in mind. The end result would be a lot less messy.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love a lot of the stuff mentioned in this thread. It's just not that feasible.

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Post by Constipated_Vigilante » Fri, 2. Apr 04, 22:38

I would love that. I'm both a huge space sim and FPS fan. Before I found Freespace 1, I was playing a ton of Quake II, Duke Nukem, etc. I think we should be able to have commando parties for boarding, or, if you want, have the comp calculate outcome based on exp of your soldiers, weapons, scenario, etc. Another aspect I would like to see in the future is doing combined air/ground assaults on planets. For example, you could go in with your Colossus and a fleet of Novas inside over a large battle for an installation with troops on the ground. Then, you could either pilot a Nova, or beam yourself to the ground, or even beam yourself to a destroyer in orbit of the planet that's blasting away with its lasers and missiles. THAT would be cool. I might be the only one here who actually plays Savage, but I love it. It combines FPS and RTS into one game. I agree the RTS isn't quite as good as the FPS not because of the combination of engines, but because the commander (RTS) doesn't have total control, unlike most RTS's.
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grandgnu
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Post by grandgnu » Sat, 3. Apr 04, 05:20

Why would it be SO difficult and/or impossible for X2 to incorporate flight and FPS? Look at Battlefield 1942 or its' Desert Combat mod.

You can be a soldier on the ground, you can hop into ground vehicles, command boats or fly in a jet or chopper. There's flight, sea and ground combat, what would be the problem?

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Post by Redjack » Sat, 3. Apr 04, 06:33

The problem is that BF1942 was designed from the ground up to support all of those things. They were all part of the design from the beginning, and the game was built around the concept of being able to fly, drive, and shoot everything. Because of that, everything fit together perfectly. It wasn't bolted on as an afterthought like an FPS element in X2 would be.

Just imagine how much code would have to be written and rewritten to add in FPS sequences at this stage of X2's development. You'd need to code the FPS element from scratch. Enemy AI, weapon functionality, movement code. Not to mention all the modifications you'd have to make to existing code to get it all to fit together.

Don't forget about all the graphical content that would need to be created. You'd need to model and animate crewmen from each race, each ship's interior, weapons.

It's a nightmare from a logistical standpoint.

B2-The Player
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Post by B2-The Player » Sat, 3. Apr 04, 06:45

If there is an X-pansion i hope you can find bret in some remote galaxy

khanis
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Post by khanis » Sat, 3. Apr 04, 06:58

I think they should do two things:
1. Make M1's and M2's much more resistant to fightercraft fire and increase capital ship weaponry.
2. Introduce the M7 Frigate class ship. Between the size of an M2 and an M6, with each race having its own special mix of weapons. In other words, Argon could have lots of turrets covering every angle, but not great guns. Paranid could have very powerful weapons, but very few, with only the large ones capable of fitting to a front position(capital ship killers). Teladi could have a frigate capable of firing a new missile that is much more powerful than a Hornet.

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maestro4202
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Post by maestro4202 » Sat, 3. Apr 04, 07:08

Isnt going in you spacesuit considered FPS? Cough! Ya u know it is... anyways.. invovling ground combat and inside ship combat is an argument that predates X2 itself. I'm not trying to say your dumb for bringing it up again, its a great idea..just saying the general consensus seems to be youre trying to do a thing that is done better with 2 separate games instead of one. But hey, busting into a first person mode to explore a planet surface might be a revolutionary thing..its just that any respectable publisher is terrified of the idea..it just doesnt look good in there sales projection models. I know it sux but Egosoft has still taken gaming to a new level with X2 if ya ask me. :wink:

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Post by grandgnu » Sat, 3. Apr 04, 11:57

I'm not saying to add this feature to X2, I'm saying to add it to a future X game so it does wind up being figured into the code in the beginning.

And since it can be done (i.e. BF 1942) I don't see how it would be as large of a problem as some are making it out to be.

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Sleeper Service
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Post by Sleeper Service » Sun, 4. Apr 04, 17:18

The thing which really bugs me about this whole scheme is that, yes it would be cool. But to do this you would need to turn X into a RTS, simply to have resources enough to have large fleet combat.

The closest thing ive got to fleet combat in X2 is my Titan to plough through wave after wave of ks while my idiot escort crusiers fly in a rediculusly futile attack pattern doing diddly squat to the enemy crusiers an visa versa.

Can you imagen losing your pride and joy which cost you upwards of 60mill to a boarding party. The only way i can see this making the game really better is if the player gets a shipyard and a relible source of waeponary.

Good idea, just mildy unsutible at present.

As for FPSing missions, after a while you would get used to ship layout, then you'ed get bored of going into enemy ships, then you'ed get your marines to go in on their own, then your marines that cost you loads would die very quickly in a sort of buggered OOS combat. Then you'ed scream at the computer for its comleat lack of sanity and storm off to find a cliff somewhere.

Its happend to my freighters.
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beefsteaks
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Post by beefsteaks » Sun, 4. Apr 04, 17:34

It would mean some you cammand yourself and some you don't.

Really its no different than a game like Total War. Sometimes you command the armies manually and have a damn good time doing it, other time you focus on the tactical game and let the battles resolve themselves.

Its a matter of taste and mood really. It would be great to have the choice to choose between the styles of game as you want to though.

Sometimes you are commanding fleets and building bases and economies, other times you are running and gunning FPS style and sometimes flying around in a NOVA capping or a TS trading.

Great variety you would never get bored :)

I dont think adding it to X2 is a good idea, I would say it has to be designed that way from the start but it could be done and it would rock, probably one of the best games of all time i'd guess.

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Some Strange Man
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Post by Some Strange Man » Sun, 4. Apr 04, 18:43

Ok, my thoughts:

Capping of capital ships and stations should definetely be a real possibility.

We should be able to get a group of marines onboard a station/cap ship after beating down the shields and doing, say, 70% damage to the hull, and then teleport them inside where they take a certain amount of time to attempt to capture the station.

Meanwhile, outside, the station calls in the big guns, and a large M3 fighter group or 1 or 2 M6s jumps in to take you on, and potentially reclaim or destroy the station/cap ship if it should happen to capitulate. - The boarding party will take some basic equipment. Maybe a couple of 125Mw shields and some disposable ECells to get the shields partially up immediately.

The boarding party maths should operate like this:


Argon are plain. They have to direct bonuses or drops in attack or defence.

Boron seem peaceful, but that would make unwary invaders weaker by a small amount, this would be teladi. They would also have one major advantage though... they live underwater, meaning that all invaders have to wear big and heavy oxygen tanks which, when hit, explode. So that all non-Boron attackers have a major HP drop. - conversely the opposite is true, any Boron invaders have to have their equivalent "water supply".

Paranid, are usually good tacticians and, according to argonopedia, are very strong, so should get bonuses to chances to win, and hit point boosts. The weaknesses they have, are they can't deal well with the cold (more likely to fail in worse damaged ships) as well as being bigger (and so easier to hit). They are also the most tactical, and therefore take longest to take over a ship. In defence, they should be very tactical, and therefore slow the enemy down most.

Split, are recklessly aggressive and are fairly strong. So they should stand a good chance of capping the ship, but also destroy non-essential equipment on board in the process. They would cap the fastest. - But they would be horrible at defence as they arent tactical, and they are too aggressive. So they would be overcame easiest.

The teladi, are, well, greedy, they had somewhat armoured plates, and are small. So thats HP boosts. They can change colour, so that means they can often take the enemy by surprise, so that gives them the first shots. They move well in water (though still need an air supply), so have boosts against the Boron defenders. The drawbacks of the teladi is that they stop moving when terrified: a split or paranid could terrify them and then crush them like worms, even some more aggressive looking argons and borons could do that. They arent particularly strong or aggressive so maybe attack worse, and as they are greedy, they could strip some of the nice addons (Any component worth more than say, 50,000).
In defence, they would be roughly the same as they are in attack.

Xenon have less HP than anyone else, but are faster, and more accurate with their weapons. - They negate all atmospheric effects: boron ships are just like all other ships.

Khaak, should be very very fast, fairly well co-ordinated, not so hot at the killing, are plentiful (3vs1 type outnumbering) but have only a few "critical members", who are responsible for the whole operation, kill one of them, and their defence or attack fails.

Elite teams: A mix of all friendly races who have boosted stats and some nice equipment that helps nullify all drawbacks (like a smaller air supply or thermal suits to help warm the paranid.)

This should all be done mathematically, while you attack the incoming defence ships.

The AI would obviously need to have access to these types of things as well.

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Post by manniac » Sun, 4. Apr 04, 19:21

Nice idea Starnge Man. I'd really like to see a FPS engine implemented, but ohh well, if isnt posible, a AI calculus of combat will suffice too.
I dont agree with peeps that said FPS engine cant be blended with space sim one. Examples: UFO defense, X-COM Interceptor, Imperium Galactica 2, etc.
UFO defense had a tactical map, u spend most of the time, when combat occured u were loaded to combat screenq, where u could move your soldiers around in a turn based fashion.
X-COM Interceptor was similar, when combat occured u were loaded to a space sim combat, very realistic dogfight, u could have also up to 4 wingmens to lead in battle.
Imperium galagtica was a space colonization strategy game, and u had 2 distinctive types of combat: 1 in space, when 2 fleets would meet, and 2nd on ground, when u were attacking a planet. U could unload tanks, troops, etc, and they were attacking the defending buildings, taking fire, very fun.

Prolly the most realistic expectation from Ego would be to implement a system similar to Master of Orion 2. The combat was AI calculated, taking in factor race bonuses, atmospheric conditions, the weapons were used, armor, agresivness, combat experience.
With a small veteran crew, u were able to wipe out a whole planetary defense.
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boarding cross system compatibility

Post by unicornix » Fri, 11. Oct 19, 07:45

ArgonTrustedLoony wrote:
Fri, 2. Apr 04, 14:14
I agree with sq_paradox, it's a really nice idea but next to impossible to implement well and although I, like sq_paradox, like FPS games many people who play sims hate them and would be really put off by having to use this method.
I def disagree, but for Egosoft to work with Bethesda, and you know, you gotta wait, the games closing uploading the specs to the sub-game (alternate engine). And for VR'ers how long you realistically gonna be deploying through the ship, before entering out ( on the new engine ) into your jetpack to cavalier onto the enemy vessel. Expect some hustling of very heavy doors i.e shutting down and booting up (a masking would be verry effective simply put)

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Re: Add Ship Boarding Combat Poll

Post by Alan Phipps » Fri, 11. Oct 19, 10:24

That's a 15+ year necro! <click>
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