Pretty much the thing that's most wanted that isn't already in empires. The scripts exist, some models and materials exist, anyone who did some digging would know. how much would it take to fully restore and test them? maybe changing the whole plane idea into helicopters or VTOL aircraft that can hover.. of course this idea got scrapped, but that was years ago, why not try again? i mean it wouldn't hurt to try.
no one needs excuses. what it needs is workforce. if itd be excuses hindering empires itd be a AAA game.
Hundreds of hours were sunk into the aircraft concept by competent people across multiple different attempts. Yes, with some serious work things could be picked up where they were left off, but that's not the the problem. The ultimate reason it was abandoned: they're a pipe dream that doesn't really have anything to offer Empires as it stands. If the concept of aircraft was solid and the implementation was well planned then with a lot of effort they could work, but that's not the case. It's best left as a "wouldn't it be cool" fantasy.
Everybody's too narrow-minded when it comes to the concept of aircraft. Here's what I propose: The scout gains the ability to inflate himself to the point of being a round scout-balloon, and can carry a single person. Just imagine, you're holed up on the D2 hill on emp_canyon, fending off barrages from enemy heavy tanks below. When all the sudden, shadows cross over you and you look up to see 3 over-inflated scouts carrying riflemen cresting the ridge that separates you from the northeastern corner of the map. "My god..." you mutter, your forehead drenched with sweat - "We're fucked".
We don't have a NF aircraft factory, and the scale map-wise was always an issue as well. The maps are just to small to be viable for aircrafts.
We do not plan to support aircraft in the foreseeable future, the engine does not allow maps that are large enough to accommodate them and scaling introduces a lot of additional complexity.
I'm glad there is not going to be aircraft for the reason that it tends to make infantry obsolete. When I used to play bf2 it became increasingly difficult to survive long enough to do what needed to be done due to aircrafts, especially on certain maps. I think aircrafts would change the whole dynamics of the empires gameplay.
Aircraft couldve worked on specially designed maps but would probably just enlarge the existing problem of "lol box of chocolates single apc going in vague direction of your main"on any existing classic.
The only use of blimp use i think could be at the start of the round. Just imagine: The match is starting, all the soldiera are waiting in the darkenss of the transport crate, crewing themselves into the squads and choosing commander, awaiting the time they got deployed. When the match start, they hear the loud roar of falling, and the blimp lands and opens the hatch to let the soldiers go. After a while, transport aircraft drops commander vehicle and the game starts. And the transport box could work as rax for first 5 minutes?
Most people won't get this, though to be fair I think the aircraft were removed from that before I even started playing. As for aircraft, Varbles pretty much hits it on the head. They're a nice idea but totally pointless in Source. The maps are honestly too small to properly support aircraft. The only way it was ever going to work was via scaling, which added a whole host of other problems. Every map that aircraft were usable on would have to be a specific aircraft enabled map. If Empires ever got a remake then it might be viable, but it will never be a serious option on source. I actually did a bit of flying with the Empires aircraft at 16x scaling, dogfighting with MOOtant and such. It wasn't that great.
It's aircraft month again. Is it on schedule? I think we missed it last year. Where is Empty when you need him... Aircraft are so fundamentally game breaking it is unreal. Whats a chokepoint?! Anyway I really dont see how you could make them work to compliment the kind of game empires is. It juust about works OK in Renegade X (which we should all play btw, its quick free and fun).
Oh yeah.. That map did have aircraft in the skybox :D I meant that I once actually added brush based thruster based aircraft to duststorm, one for each them. Buggy as hell and crashed the server, but it was fun for the first 5 minutes!
think about it this way. a source unit in hl2 is about 0.75". the grid goes from -16k to +16k something, so roughly 32k" * 0.75 = 24k", which are about 600m (~1/3rd of a mile) even if it would be 1su=1", its well under 1km (~830m) and 1km is nothing already.
Yes. This is an unfortunate truth in Source. The engine was designed for small/medium-scaled urban combat. Looking at Nuclear Dawn/Titanfall though, you can do a lot. Empires was originally envisioned to be on par (size) with Battlefield maps. The game was moved to Source from the BF1942 engine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractor_Engine https://wiki.empiresmod.com/Change_Log#Version_1.0_Beta
Very few players can drive the tanks we have at a somewhat safe and controlled manner. Allowing them to play with aircraft would likely end up a worse suicidal research path than artillery.
but thats also because in empires its smart to drive your tank as close to the enemy as possible without inflicting self damage. for ranged combat they just dont deal enough/take to much damage. over the distance of idk 5-6 barracks 2 tanks fighting eachother can go on forever if the drivers are engis.
