Hey everyone! You've probably seen or read about some of the progress I've been making on my WIP Tank game and I wanted to get some feedback on a few ideas I'm bouncing around.
(Here's a playlist of the update videos if you haven't seen them)
First off: Target locking. I added the lagged cursor to the game to show where your tank is going to fire when moving the cursor around, as it can't turn instantaneously as it depends on the quality of the turret you have fitted to the vehicle.
I'm toying around with the idea of target locking, essentially, you will lock onto a target and instead of the game auto-tracking to your cursor's position, it'd track instead to the locked target's position. This is to make the game slightly easier for those who want to focus fire on a single target. Jamming devices will be able to break locks (as well as screwing with the radar), and the speed or accuracy at which the lock is initiated will be based on a new part type that I've been heavily considering implementing: a CPU/AI that handles targeting.
I'd like to implement this but I wanted to get an idea of what the community and potential players thought of it before progressing with it too much.
Second: Cloaking. This basically counts as a sub cannon and allows you to momentarily break target lock while also making you very difficult to see by enemy players, and invisible to AI enemies. Once it runs out you'll have to wait for it to recharge, but ending it early gives you a recharge speed bonus
Third: A playable Alpha. I've been considering modifying things around to represent what one of the single-player campaign missions would end up being like. At the same time, it would also give players some time to try out all of the weapons, chassis, turrets, sub units, etc. that are available so far.
Getting an Alpha working will take a bit of time but it'll be a big step for the game and it'll be an amazing feedback tool for those who wish to experience the game.
Fourth: Ammo. This is always a touch one for me. I really don't like having to manage ammo when I play a game, especially in a game where ammo drops shouldn't really be happening if I want to keep it remotely realistic. I'm considering something like providing a large amount of ammo to begin with and also including weapons which are based on energy output from the tank's generator (energy based weapons) to give you a harder to use but effectively infinite ammo weapon. Thoughts?
Fifth: Camera Bounding. This will effectively force the camera to conform to a certain area when playing, allowing the tank to move freely from the center of the screen (similar to how client EDGE_PERSPECTIVE works). The issue with this system is that it'll take a lot of work to get implemented and it may end up making the game more difficult, as it'll force you to adapt where you put the cursor in order to turn and direct the tank's turret (which could also be alleviated with the target locking feature if implemented). Not sure how to go about this if at all.
Anyway, thanks for the consideration. I appreciate all viable feedback. =)
ID:1923774
 Aug 23 2015, 9:47 pm
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The cloaking idea sounds really interesting. IMO, I think AI players should have the same advantages real ones do, so maybe the tank would be visible to them if it moved and it was within a certain radius, but tracking it would be difficult.
E.g., I'm picturing this as something like Predator armor, very hard to see but not impossible. So the idea of where it is might be very vague, especially at first. That translates to, for example, a radius of 2 tiles inaccuracy to start. That radius would shrink to around half a tile over time, but would increase back towards 2 tiles when moving. The "estimated" position would only update when it fell outside of the range, or during movement; for a more interesting pattern, maybe the movement tracking would be sporadic at best and would itself be subject to a certain inaccuracy. So if I'm an AI tank and I see a cloaked tank move 10px east, my estimate may shift by 14px east, 3 north. Or, maybe I see the movement, calculate a new estimated position, and only change it if the new estimate is in the same direction (relative to the old) as the target itself. | |
I was considering that, tying alpha transparency to your total velocity and having it jump up when firing.
Should be interesting. Thanks much for the feedback, I see you're enjoying the new hookers and blackjack. | |
Not sure what you mean, but I didn't check out that link. I intrinsically distrust .ru links.
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I rather regret never getting into Futurama.
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I'll have my own video game, with hookers and blackjack!