Too much work and too many issues. Mobile raxes would be useless on maps like crossroads whereas BE quick build ones would be very useful. And so on and so forth. Really we can hardly even balance weapons and tanks that are near identical.
I can see maybe if both teams had there first and only barracks mobile on aircraft maps only.. or maybe on classic maps.. I dunno, it would take alot of testing.
I suggested letting players buy vehicles that can be deployed as structures a while ago. At least, I thought I did. Drive the vehicle to where you want it, park and deploy it, have an engineer zap it with his calculator (maybe.) Maybe it wouldn't be able to unpark (too griefable.) Easy. Well, except for the whole coding it and making models for it and stuff, but that's always that.
Yeah I mean it doesn't need to be fancy, it can just be one vehicle per team that deploys into a building of choice using the rotation of the vehicle as a template, that'd be a nice substitute for the commander method. In fact if we could place vehicles in hammer rather than having to spawn them, I could make a system that does that anyway.
I was kinda thinking like letting people build VFs as well. Like you'd start with a rax and a VF, then the VF can produce new units and buildings. It'd probably involve making the VFs a much more expensive/larger unit and much more fortified, because they'd become like a construction yard and a war factory in one. I'd say give it a bigger interior, stick some low-level turrets on the outside, and add bunker slots, as well as making it really damage resistant and adding a weak point inside that engineers can destroy, because you need to defend these things, they'd be like the command vehicle. I think it would make a very interesting game, you could keep commander mode in if you wanted but I think no-comm vf-only mode would be more popular. As for your MCVs those would be fine, although I'd give them a small turret with maybe a one slot MG for personal defence, as well as high hull health but no armor. I should probably write a big description of what I have in mind because it includes a lot of other changes I've suggested before.
There wouldn't be a CV in that mode. I'd probably say the victory condition should be 'destroy all enemy VFs and raxes' in that mode.
If this was implemented asymmetrically, it would not work. If both teams could use this, it may be balanced, but implementing a wholly new feature for one team would result in balance having to be reworked with additional factors.
I see what your saying. With the MCUs, it is possible to scrap the commander entirely. Players can construct and place their own buildings. Letting players conduct research will obviously come into play also. It's a great idea, very different and certainly viable, but I have no idea how good or bad this would be for gameplay. It's very different from what we have now, and without the Commander being the guiding force of a team, then this might actually cause less teamwork. Just pointing that out. P.S. I have no idea how you would place turrets. P.P.S. Hey, I spelled turrets correctly! WOOOOOT!!!!!! :D P.P.P.S. I bet that absolutely no one who reads this post will get that old joke.
Why not make the VF the only stationary building, and have all subsequent Mobile structures come from the VF? To avoid griefing for these Drivable structures, why not only allow the Commander to move them? It would be more like other RTS's, where the commander selects the building, clicks a button to unlock it's wheels or treads or whatever, and then clicks the location he wants it to redeploy. And finally, I have a question. Does the mobile barracks spawn units while moving?
What we need is the unit cannon from Supreme Commander 2. "It's raining engineers!" "Give me my heavy rifle, johnny!"
I had an idea a while back that I thought was interesting. It seemed a bit too radical a change for Empires, but if we're talking about ways of doing away with the comm, it might be worth bringing up. Basically, I think it would be interesting if every APC doubled as a mini-CV. The driver of an APC can go into comm mode. Within a limited radius, they can give orders to people who spawned in that APC (or just rode in it) to try and coordinate them. They could build structures in a limited radius around the APC. Their comm view, though, would be constrained to the area near the APC-CV -- maybe even centered on it. Possibly, APCs could have their own limited pool of res -- they could draw it from nearby refs (within a certain wide radius.) If multiple APCs are in range of refs, it's divided between them based on how close they are. APCs with no driver only receive res if there are no APCs with drivers in the area (to prevent spammed APCs from wasting res.) Now, what if it was only these comm-APCs, no actual comms? What if there was no general res pool, just a res pool for each APC-CV? (Or, perhaps, a portion of the res each APC-CV earns could be redirected into a general pool for tank purchases.) This would make hidden refs on the other side of the map useless. I think that that might actually be a good thing -- there would be more focus on controlling specific areas, less on rushing one side of the map. APC-CVs could use their personal res pool for research. Research would affect the entire team. This would probably allow for a team to research many things at once unless it's tweaked, which could radically alter the research balance. Various other options would have to be considered, handling this in some other way -- but I think the potential benefits are more than worth it. Because people could spawn in an APC-CV (perhaps only after research is done) the driver would have a direct control over the portion of the team that chooses to stick with them, in the same way APC drivers have it currently. Let's be honest -- right now, spawn-APC-driving gives you probably has the potential to give you more direct control over the team than anything else. And it doesn't bother everyone! It works fine! It's something that we should build the entire comm model around, I say. Losing an APC-CV would be potentially catastrophic, since all its stored res would be gone. You lose if you have no APC-CVs and no VFs to build more. There's a lot of ways this could go wrong, of course. It might force people to drive APC-CVs and manage their research when they don't want to. It might result in res from one part of the map getting wasted by an idiot. But, as a tradeoff, I think it would lead to a more "organic" comm-player relationship, one where APC-CVs tend naturally to focus on key areas and try to expand (because they have to be near refs to fuel their ability to plant buildings and research), while infantry tend to naturally stay near APC-CVs (because they can spawn there.) Using the CV to build expansions is simply fun. It's fun in a way a lot of other comm stuff isn't. It's too risky right now... but why not try to build around that fun, and to link things to it in an interesting way? I think that you'd find lots of people willing to drive APC-CVs. You wouldn't have to tend it all the time, either -- it'll still collect res if there's nobody else in the area. An APC-CV driver would have a very strong incentive to both push push push and to hold things that you already own... and to avoid other APC-CV drivers (since you get less res if you're dividing between two), so they'll naturally spread out and attack, each carrying a squad of people with them, operating as a team in a 'natural' fashion with nobody being really forced to do anything. People who want to wander off and be lone wolves could still wander off and be lone wolves. Hell, you could take an APC-CV yourself and be a 'lone wolf' with that (although you'll eventually attract people who will spawn in it if you drive to an important location -- which is a good thing, I think; it'll naturally result in a team working together, without requiring that people who want to be lone wolves and go where they want change their fundamental gameplay style.) Anyhow, it's rather long, I know, but I think it's interesting... does anyone think that this is a good idea? Or is it just too far out there? (I know research probably requires more work, but I like the idea of people being able to just grab an APC-CV, drive to or capture an unused ref, then use the proceeds to research whatever they like if they feel the team needs XYZ, instead of complaining.) Should I create a whole new thread for it?
Why is the big question on the post above me. Sounds way to complicated when it gives little gain. Also this idea is terrible. It requires new maps, it also requires new balancing, and the dev team can't do enough work to get this done.
The day they remove commander is the day that I stop playing Empires... What I like about Empires is the team work, and some omnipotent person in the skybox guiding everything, leading his or her team to victory. People doing their own research? Their own structures?? ect. Sorry, but I strongly dislike this idea, What about resources? The reason I play Empires is because I like playing with other people, playing strategic with tactics. I don't get why everyone needs to be a super individual that should only care about themselfs not thinking about how their actions might have an impact on their team. Letting players build MCVs from the VF is an idea I like, having special maps without a commander where people need to build their own base sounds cool too. Scrapping the commander entirely and make this a dumb FPS where all you need to do is care about your self is bad bad bad, people should take responsibility, the reason people want to remove the commander is because they don't wan't to take responsibility, they don't wan't to use tactics, they don't wan't to take care of someone else, or even care about their team. I think in Empires it's a good things to be forced to work together as a team, I think it's good that you can't lone wolf and take out an entire team by your self.
Well you don't have to remove the commander mode, it's in the game and it 'works' albeit rather badly, but a mode without the commander where the players do all the comm's jobs is worth investigating.
Well, as I said, I like the idea. But I don't think we should cooperation and teamwork from the game. I don't see everyone buying their own structures either, this is just waiting for someone to grief it. Let's first try if this works with the commander mode, let the commander build the MCVs and move them. This could also lead to interesting maps, where you are giving a few MCVs at start. It would even be nice to have a construction vehicle(for mapping purposes) that deploys into a command center.
