Real Time Strategy Wasteland ...ideas?

[Skyviper086]

Hey,

 

I was wondering if you have anything that you'd like to add to this list. Before we get started let me explain that I know very little about mod development and will be learning some things. Also here are my random thoughts first.

 

So after several playthroughs and looking at the story line from various aspects. I though it would be cool if the player can make their own Empire. Let's think about this for a second. The stock hero character is either a war veteran with military experience or a Lawyer. Either way both are very educated and know what things were like.

 

These new Fallout games with their factions are starting kind of get on my nerves a little bit. No matter what you do you're never really a shot caller. You're a doer which is all good but in the end you're the errand runner. Do this, go there, do that, build this.

 

I think it would be neat to build your own faction, your own ... military. Make the wasteland yours. Fly your flag over everything you can see if you want to.

 

I was thinking about a having a tech tree system (like in the RTS games). You have to construct this item before this can be constructed type thing. (regardless of perks which take forever to acquire).

 

Looking at the wasteland ... basic resources (like from ye olde War Craft ... no not WOW. Warcraft... it's Starcraft without the buttons, and it's not in Space...less sophisticated. [Points to whoever gets the reference]

 

Anyway this kind of what I'm thinking about I'm not sure how much of this can be done.

 

http://i.imgur.com/f1ql8wP.png

 

Scavengers can collect things from secured areas or the aftermath of battles. Their collected items go to a collection station. When enough supplies are maintained a supply depot can be built. When there too much for the army a Surplus Store can be built to generate caps.

 

Shooting range makes snipers.

Training Grounds make the veteran warriors, power armor units (provided a lab is built)

 

Tents house grunts, scavengers.

 

Shelter provides a better place for people to live and opens up the school. The school/academy. Opens up the science department which in turn opens up the factory. The factory allows power armor units to be created, as well as artillery and vertibirds. And forgot to include in my make shift crappy drawing the creation of robots.

The science department can also increase the effectiveness of units as well.

 

 

Resources

 

Concrete- as is

Metal- All things metallic screws, gears, aluminum, etc.

Oil = oil and oil related products

Power = power and everything dealing with it ..circuitry etc.

Supplies= Everything else. Bullets, caps, crafting items, tools. armor, etc.

 

 

 

Well that's what I have so far. What are your thoughts?

Edited November 11, 2016 by Skyviper086

[montky]

@skyviper086

indeed! what a great idea thread this is.

that would be AWESOME!

it would certainly add to the end-game,

and the sandbox elements for open-world etc...

apologies for a novella in reply - you ask a very awesome and complex question though.

 

-----

 

as I said in a previous thread recently on a similar topic here on nexus,

how full circle is that?

FO1, FO2 and FOtactics etc, were RTS/topdown iso strategy games,

so, to see it as a 'side game'/'dual game' in FO4 would be awesome!

 

Sid Meier's Fallout 4 hehehe

 

----

game mechanics discussion and all;

part of the instability of FO4,

is the size and scope of the game.

there are a lot of things going on, so... to run essentially 2 games at the same time,

would be taxing...

 

that's why Caravan and dice poker and other side-games

are noticeably absent from FO4,

in addition to the "cost-v-usage' analysis the game makers made -

how many users will actually play those sidegames and all?

 

that out of the way...

I don't see why you couldn't do something similar to

DUST/eve cross over,

battlefront 2's "galactic conquest' game mode,

Star Trek Generations (an FPS and starship combat simulator)

or the Sins of a Solar Empire - FPS creator 8 port,

or,

SW:JK:JKA - SW:Empire at War cross port mod...

the stardock games ports and mods they've tried over time.

or, the Ryse-Empire Total War mod project -

so you can have an old-school RTS and a FPS for resolving the battles...

 

let alone, discussing how things like MMOs or

Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous work, when simulating a

1:1 explorable universe in real-time...

(those simulations are done on networks with petaflops of power,

the player console is just a port/tie-in to that...player computers don't have the raw power

needed to simulate the whole thing, so its peer-to-peer to get around it.)

 

----

the player states from

the settlements and such,

are saved as a hexadecimal or table of values,

to be throughput to

the strategy 'mini-game'...

this would also have to tell the RTS game

where people are at what settlements,

where 'provisioners' are between settlements etc.

the FPS's gamestate becomes the constraints for

the RTS's gamestate.

 

the RTS's gamestate then adds to the FPS's gamestate.

updated after 'end of battle'.

they have a handover, and updating cycle, before pausing etc.

 

the results from the strategy minigame,

are then saved to the

FPS overgame.

 

you build things only from the FPS overgame,

which become usable in the RTS minigame.

if you had a base-building/construction element to the RTS mode, it might be difficult to

write the changes from

the RTS to the FPS gamestates... because its a floating-point

of a floating-point, and verges on an "A is subset A*" self-referential problem...

 

this becomes complicated when

you're modelling who dies from the settlement,

if floating-point variable strings like 'player names' and quest variables

'die' in the RTS game...

do essential NPCs participate in the RTS side-game?

can essential quest giving NPCs die in the RTS side-game? - if yes, then, how do you complete quests if they die?

if you make a lot of NPC's in the RTS side game,

where in the FPS do they go when the RTS pauses?

 

how does the RTS handle mods from the FPS -

particularly, 'armor keywords' / 'armor mods' and

'any mod any weapon' ?

- can I equip squads in the RTS with my custom uber-pipe weapons

or a zillion of the "Goodman's Grue-Bleen alien plasma blaster"?

 

So, you play the FPS,

and then at different points,

the FPS 'pauses",

and you switch in back of house

to the RTS game, which is preloaded and paused...

the RTS game resolves, and throws back to

the FPS.

it's probably live read-writing to a database in html

or xml...

 

the RTS pauses in back of house.

the FPS resumes and you interact with the game...

the in-game-time advances the appropriate duration.

an 8 hour battle in the RTS translates to 8hours advancing in the FPS,

so your character might be starving in Survival mode etc... :smile:

 

-----

long story short -

this would require quite a few highly skilled modders...

and if the RTS component couldn't be modded to be interoperable from existing options and permissions etc,

then, it would require the building of the RTS component from the ground up...

not an easy or quick task hehe.

 

I don't know Unity well enough to say how it handles crossing between those applications,

or whether there are better implementations to achieve the RTS interoperability with FPS part.

 

though, a project like this would be AWESOME to see happen.

It'd be a great collab project and for-fun project.

 

indulge me a moment more -

imagine, the dialogue NPCs make after a decisive loss in

the RTS... changes, depending on the outcome of the battle

(simple IFF/XOR - if |number of losses relative to starting forces| exceeds 90% losses, then x,y,z dialogue set at |get.that.settlement.value|

plays until next update trigger.event)

if PlayerFaction = x,y,z and NPC playerfaction defeated in RTS battle, then x,y,z dialogue plays...

if PlayerKarma = x,y,z value after RTS battle, then x,y,z dialogue plays (you monster, you didn't have to massacre them! etc)

 

imagine, if more FO1 and FO2 functionality returned...

AGIXML/speech-to-text, where you can actually input text-strings to NPCs,

and it is parsed through a limited AIXML or AGI process...

read textstring input -

if input contains |matching table of values|, then response ranges = x,y,z.

eg, if you input only swearing, other NPCs will be offended etc...

if you use proper sentences + have charisma < value, NPCs will give you a discount,

or will reply differently...

data-mining issues aside, imagine how awesome such gaming could be.

Fable II/Fable III were interesting projects, partly for that feature and functionality.

 

imagine, making ambient events in the persistent universe,

with raiders following MCMC paths to attack random settlements etc.

(this is kinda what is sorta-implemented in FO4, but because of stability issues and

system constraints, this was altered).

 

See, these kinds of things,

are what a game company could do,

if they took one good engine, and kept working with it for a really long period of time,

rather than re-releasing the same engine with different particulars every 4 years.

Garth Marenghi - "if you must buy only one of my books, buy this one; which is all of them"

-"what are the blank pages randomly interspersed in the book?"

garth - "don't tear those out! they're spots for the books I've not yet written yet, or autographs,

or if you had to, for use as a notepad or to tear out, and pick things up" :smile:

 

catch22 though;

if you make the un-finishable game that is dynamic and self-updating etc,

then, from a business standpoint, you put yourself out of business a little...

(not at all true - it shifts the business model to 'commissionable tailor-made content' and more story arcs etc,

folks pay for new DLC and to support those seasons/story arcs etc, a positive geared arrangement makes

annuities possible etc.)

 

I love bethesda, and I look forward to what they're cooking up for

Fallout VR, they've hinted they want to look into some of those features and functionality,

I just wish Bethesda balanced those considerations,

with backwards-compatibility and accessibility to the broader market.

that would be a market edge -

in a market where games cost now hundreds of dollars for

incomplete things...

bethesda could offer more game for less dollars AND form

a thriving DLC community which makes 2nd Life look tiny by comparison hehe.

[Skyviper086]

Oops. Replying in your in PM.

Edited November 11, 2016 by Skyviper086