Mod idea

[larkendar]

Idea for a mod one that allows players to have their own kingdom and wage war over other kingdoms and eventually take the others over

 

 

There should be full scale assaults with anywhere from 50-1000 man armies

 

the player should be able to command his team through like an orb or another npc that tells the army what to do with an enemy army allready scripted to do things and the enemy should increase in toughness depending on how large/small it is

 

 

 

just an idea if any one out there can get this done that would be awesome!!

[Xeivous]

Well obviously the first problem would be frame-rates, my comp had trouble with the final fight from the bladesong mod and that had about 40 npcs total in it full scale... But the commands should be child's play, especially with OBSE

[kieranfoy]

Can't. Oblivion's AI won't handle any more than ten or so NPC's in one cell. They just freeze up.

[ub3rman123]

Yeah, computers tend to explode after a hundred or so NPCs.

 

You could use a very, very low poly model instead for fighters, though. Like the spectators in the Arena, although they're just statics.

[kieranfoy]

Model isn't the problem. AI is.

[bben46]

You can have as many men in your army as you want. However only about 20 can be shown at any time and even that will cause many computers to slow to the point of being unplayable. The game engine was just not designed for masses of npcs. Also, many of the animations you will need - soldiers marching in formation, men scaling ladders, falling off, cavalry charges do not exist and would have to be made - very time consuming and labor intensive.

 

There are other games that do this well because their game engine was designed for it. They don't do nearly as well as Oblivion in things like controlling a single player in combat, Scenery, plot lines that do not involve masses of soldiers.

[larkendar]

eh figured it wouldnt be possible in the back of my mind.... but eh it would be sweet

[Skevitj]

Here's an idea: Use near the AI limit (15/20? something like that) and have spawn points hiding behind rocks etc (somewhere outside the player's direct view but close by). A global script would then govern it such that when a solider dies, a new one is spawned at a suitable point (closest one to point of death maybe?). It would create a semi wave effect, so only 10~ at fighting at once, but replacements form an almost continuous front line (not necessarily stationary). Each side could still have ~1000 soldiers (or a more sensible number; You do realize just how big 1000 is?). With the wonder of DeleteRef there is a good chance it would be possible to create an infinite battle, which could only be stopped by the player fighting (or sneaking) to a certain point (through the front line, maybe killing the commander on the other side causing their troops to frenzy and reinforcement spawns to stop?).

 

The body count could be handled by allowing ~5 or so dead bodies, every time a new person dies, the oldest body in the list is disabled (and deleted). This means there isn't a problem stemming from having a few hundred dead bodies littering the cell, or a battlefield with no bodies, as the body front line would hopefully mirror the battle front line. There's probably going to be a few implementation difficulties, but I can't forsee anything which would stop it dead. I have very little experience with the AI side of things or massive amounts of creatures, but from what I've seen, dealing with the bodies will either be the biggest challenge to solve, or the easiest.

 

Most like this aren't impossible, it's just about kludging the pieces which are easily doable together with workarounds/approximations for the bits which aren't. Just keep churning out ideas, sooner or later the parts will come together.

 

@bben46: Custom animations and token actions could be added in for the visuals at the end if people's patience holds, I don't see why most of the real combat content couldn't occur in a manner similar to an upscaled Battle for Castle Kavatch. I agree with formation marching though; Dense enough to not look ridiculous would be an absolute nightmare. Guess the PC wil just have to arrive after the lines have formed.

 

 

At any rate, that's my 2 cents worth.

 

EDIT: Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage ... Heading to the pulse field: Ignore the trenches, I'm picturing the spawning of npcs to be something similar to that. COD4 has a similar system: Reinforcements pop out of the wood work, but you never see them appear, just turn around and there they are. The ideas are always clearer in my head than when written, so there's a few examples of what I'm seeing.<br>